French Toast: Middle Eastern or Mediterranean?

I've been baking cookies. You know, trying out the bazillion "Best Choc-Chip Cookies Ever!" recipes floating around the food blogosphere. I've succumbed to all the tricks and tactics of the trade: adding an extra egg yolk, using cake flour, stuffing it with chunks of chocolate, refrigerating cookie dough for 36 hours, resisting eating raw cookie dough for the 24+ hours. The whole nine and a freaking half yards.

So you know what my post is going to be. Not Chocolate chip cookies. Had enough of them  for a while.

Middle-Eastern French toast.

I'm sorry for the build-up. Please go do some cardio+crunches(20 reps, 3 sets), and I'll have about six batches of Chocolate Chip Cookies prettily ready for you in a couple of days!

Middle-Eastern French Toast was the result of a happy accident. By that, I mean I overheard my 8-year-old sister instructing mum on how she wanted her french toast. It could also mean that I stole a slice of her French toast (and swooned) as I'd rather my metabolism went for a toss than eat Ragi Kazhi for breakfast. P.S.: It isn't a frou-frou thing. I like Kazhi, just not the ones made with Calcium-enriched Diabetic food.

Sumi had this brilliant idea of adding pinches and pinches of saffron strands to the French toast egg mix... she probably thought it'd make it taste like kheer or sheer korma.



She isn't at the age where she understands how much each milligram costs... and if I tell her that mind-altering drugs cost less, I'd be killed by mum for a) "spoiling your sister and making her exactly like you" b) even if it's been two years since I graduated Medical school, Mum chooses to believe that her 24-year-old daughter has no clue about the existence of "drugs" or where babies come from; simply because unmarried girls mustn't know/speak of "these things".
I'll spare you the lengthy diatribe this post is evolving into... and teach you how to make Middle-Eastern french toast.

It's easy, you'll know how to make it already (I use the base recipe from i am baker). To go along with it, I suggest a simple, luxurious dry-fruit milk we make only (justifiably) in the month of Ramadan.

Middle-Eastern French Toast:

Ingredients:

2 eggs
1/2 cup + 2 tbsps milk
2 tbsp sugar
a pinch of salt
3/4 tsp rosewater
7-8 strands of Saffron
5-6 slices bread


Method:

Heat the 2 tbsp milk until it's boiling. Add the saffron strands to it and squeeze the extract out of it. Keep aside the saffron to infuse in the milk until cool.

In a large bowl, beat together the eggs, milk (both the plain and saffron-soaked), sugar, salt and rosewater.

Silly me forgot to do the saffron-infusion before hand. You must, though!

Heat an non-stick pan or griddle. Add a pat of butter or ghee.

Dip a slice of bread into the milk mix. Do not let it soak too much, as there won't be enough egg-milk mix for the rest of the bread.

Cook the dipped bread on medium-low, about 2 minutes on each side.

Do NOT use skim milk and wholewheat bread. Please.

Take it out and serve hot with Saffron honey and butter!

A dusting of confectioners' sugar is pretty handy when you're out of honey.



Could not resist a couple of bites fresh off the griddle, pre-photo session!



Dry-fruit milk:

Ingredients:
1 cup whole milk.
5-6 walnuts
4-5 almonds
4-5 unsalted pistachios
5 raisins or a couple of chopped up dates
a pinch of saffron
1 tbsp sugar (or more, per your liking. Remember, dates are sweet!)

Method:

Feel free to use and hold off on the dry fruits of your choice!

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl. Cover it with plastic wrap/lid, and refrigerate overnight (minimum7 hours).

You can eat it by itself or with the french toast!

Suddenly can't wait for Ramadan. For more reasons than one.

Carrot Cake for Mum.

You know how we detest certain food as kids but cannot dream of living without now?

Case in point: tea. I never liked the cups of milky chai, spiced with dried ginger (sukku) and elaichi that my mum would plonk in front of me. With a plate full of Britannia Marie that smelt vaguely of michar (mixture). Why couldn't I have fun after school snacks like "Ice Milo" and the last bits of Chips Ahoy! she hid in her dresser? Like all normal kids have?

Not with my mum. No chicken nuggets, no french fries, no pricey Squeezy Kissan Jams. My mum has no use for precious people. No hiding shaved carrots in idli batter, no happy faces drawn on roti with Milkmaid. She (rightly) knew that was just watering the fussy little gourmand in me.

Guess how I turned out anyway?

Yes, I can be finicky and a half. However, when I'm on duty (especially on nights, ICU, ER and double shifts), I drink plastic cup after plastic cup of bad hospital tea. I can recognise the sound of the tea trolley from just about anywhere. After all the childhood drama/trauma.

Back in the days of Fullhouse and Sweet Valley Twins & Friends, I'd come across various food I hadn't an inkling about. Never had a problem with Enid Blyton: fried tomatoes and hard-boiled eggs and jam tarts were easy enough to imagine. With the American books, I had these road blocks. What was Eggplant Parmigiana? Mallomars? And yes, carrot cake.

Who made anything other than beans-carrot poriyal with carrots? It's bad enough that they offered carrot juice (and tomato juice) on Air France. Carrot cake?

My doubts were put to rest when I sampled a slice of carrot cake with cream cheese frosting at a Malaysian food court. Don't ask me why I was having carrot cake instead of miscellaneous native food. I was fourteen, and that is my excuse. I was a convert.

I still have trouble trying to convince the younger ones to try carrot cake, but this recipe could change their minds and your life. This could be our basic go-to carrot cake recipe. Yes, I said ours. No big deal.

You can play around with it, adding in cardamom and medjool dates for a more Middle-eastern flavour, or stick with Vanilla for the old-fashioned bakery flavour. And no, it isn't low-fat in any way, shape or form, but I can guarantee that the other nutrients edge out the calorie-counter.

I like the tropical flavours in this cake... you could make this with tinned pineapple, dessicated coconut and the like, but India wins in the Ingredients department for a change. You get these ingredients all year around at Madras. Fresh. Yes.

Sam's Famous Carrot Cake:
(Recipe adapted from: Allrecipes.com)

Ingredients:

3 eggs

3/4 cup buttermilk (or 3/4 cup milk + 1 tbsp vinegar)

3/4 cup vegetable oil

1 1/2 cups white sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla essence

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

2 cups shredded carrots

1 cup shredded coconut

1 cup chopped walnuts

2/3 cup pineapple, chopped

1/3 cup fresh pineapple juice

1 cup raisins

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour an 8x12 inch pan.

Soak the raisins in the fresh pineapple juice for about an hour. Or you can boil the raisins in the juice for a couple of minutes. I used Real Activ Fiber Plus's Mixed Fruit juice, so there would be robust pineapple and carrot flavours.

In a medium-sized bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Set aside.

In another large bowl, combine eggs, buttermilk (or milk with vinegar), oil, sugar and vanilla. Beat on low speed for 1 minute. Add flour mixture and only FOLD it in, with a spatula.

In a medium bowl, combine shredded carrots, coconut, walnuts, pineapple and raisins with all the juice.

Add the carrot mix to the batter. The batter will be very heavy, so use a proper spatula and all your arm power.

Pour the mix into the prepared baking tin. Bake for around one hour, or until a skewer/toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean.

Take it out, let it cool for around 10 minutes. Loosen the sides of the cake from with the tin, with a knife.

Turn it out onto the serving plate. Let it cool for another 15 minutes before serving.

I served this plain, as a snack cake. You can added a dusting of icing sugar or go all out with a cream cheese frosting.

Or serve this to your mum, embellished flowers plucked by your sister from God-knows-where (neighbours' weed garden).

For all those cups of tea.

Oatmeal-Raisin-Walnut Cookie/En Garde, Chocolat!

I'm extremely suspicious of people who do not like chocolate. I know, people who claim they looooove chocolate are dime-a-dozen; even confirmed connoisseurs can be easily found. But people who don't like chocolate? It's just not natural.

Even if you didn't, would you go around admitting that fact? You don't publicly admit "I don't like chocolate/children/Nature?", do you. I don't get it.

So when I have to bake for a chocolate non-lover, I make sure I do my homework. I search for that recipe that will help me forget the existence of cacao beans. It's hard, so I make sure I rope in my arsenal of brown sugar, butter and cinnamon.

Oatmeal-raisin cookies! I tend to make giant cookies, so I can have a cookie and wash it down with milk on those hurry-burried mornings where breakfast is not an option. Sometimes, I sneak peanut butter and chocolate chips into the dough. Or go down the spice route, incorporating ginger and orange zest, for a Body Shop Christmas-inspired cookie. Whilst I love chewy, soft cookies, when I give them to people, they think I'm an incompetent baker. True story.

So. I give you, a very basic crispy Oatmeal-raisin cookie, adapted from a popular AllRecipes recipe. Cookies are treacherous things; they flop quite often. This recipe is an easy entry into the wonderful world of cookies.

Oatmeal-Raisin-Walnut cookies.

Ingredients:

3/4 cup butter, at room temperature

3/4 cup granulated white sugar

3/4 cup packed light brown sugar

2 eggs, at room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (maida)

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder.

1/2 a cinnamon bark or 3/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 3/4 cups Quaker Oats
3/4 cup raisins, steeped in hot water for 5 minutes and drained.

1/2 cup walnuts, chopped.

Method:

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius.

Grind the coarse sugar with bits of cinnamon in your mixie just until it's gritty, NOT fine.

Cream the butter, the white sugar and the brown sugar until smooth.

Whisk the eggs separately. Or you can skip this and add the eggs straight.

Add it into the batter with the vanilla. Beat until smooth.

In a separate bowl, stir together the maida, baking powder and baking soda. Fold into the batter. 

Fold in the oats. Stir the nuts and raisins.

Don't over mix or use a hand mixer for dry ingredients. I can say this each time I do a baking post, and it still won't be enough to drive home the point... it took me several flops to accept this.

I usually wrap the dough in cling film and refrigerate the dough for half an hour.

On a baking tray lined with aluminium foil (ungreased), drop a mini-scoop of ice cream shaped ball of cookie dough. Flatten it.

Bake for 8-10 minutes, until the edges are slightly brown.

Do a test run with the cookies. Just so you know how much they spread out or puff up, and more crucially, how long they take. If you bake for fewer minutes, you'll have chewy cookies.

Take them out of the oven. Cool them in their sheets for ten minutes. Transfer to a wire rack, and let them cool completely.

Store in an airtight tin. Or leave them unattended, so they can be gobbled up.

Tie pretty ribbons around them, so ideal for gifting. The non-pretty ones can be sandwiched with butterscotch ice-cream, frozen, softened, and eaten. Yum.



Freeze between sheets of butter-paper. Thaw for an easy
ice-cream sandwich!



I ate quite a bit of the dough and the crumbly bits. The chocolate-hating girl these were baked for did call me mental when I told her on PMS-days I eat Chocos for breakfast and Nutella on Wholegrain bread (healthy, but the Nutella kills any little gram of healthiness that remained) for lunch. Justifies the stealing.

Yummy Granola. Yes, it exists.

I've been on so many Bridget Jones' type of cleanses, I could write a book on them. Well, a post at the very least. And if you've read Bridget Jones, you know how the cleanses end. Not the dead-drunk bit; the other one which ends with her diving into a box of chocolates (in recent times, it has been Milano for me).

The worst one was after giving my tenth boards. A and I decided to go on one of our many joint diets. This one allowed a piece of toast, black coffee-no milk-no sugar, a boiled egg (carrots for her, the lucky Vegetarian hippy) et-very-little-cetera. We stayed on it for 4 hours (actually, I think she did three-quarters of a day). She now works out like there is no tomorrow (hippy to Yuppy) and I dream/eat/write about food. You can refer to Freud to see why we've evolved differently.

Still. There are clothes to fit into. So when I feel like a pro-health, smartass Doctor, I whip up a batch of this granola. It's one step above edible: it's actually delicious. Nothing like the sawdust blocks ("thins") Nature Valley makes. Yes, I'm only talking about the Indian made ones. Yumbars are decent, but I'm not throwing 200 bucks on cereal bars. I'm sure sane people would agree (say Hey!). Quaker Oats makes amazing cereal bars, but I guess my foreign relatives/friends don't love me enough to keep me afloat. Hint, hint.
Horlicks and RiteBite were what fuelled me through Internship year, but they're slightly too sweet and have enough calories to swap for a bar of bittersweet chocolate. What would I choose?

The chocolate. And this granola.

The writing in blue is the actual recipe. The rest of it is my incessant chatter.
This Granola.

Ingredients:

2 cups oats

1/4 cup chopped walnuts or almonds

1/4 cup raisins or figs

4 tsps Peanut butter

4 tsps Honey

Method:

Warm peanut butter and honey in a double boiler, until it's smooth. I use Skippy's Super Chunky version, because creamy, homogenous peanut butter is for wusses and babies. Honey, plain old Dabur will do. This is a budget recipe, after all.

That's the consistency you want. It gets there pretty early, so keep on eye on it unless you want unusable peanut caramel (Yum. Delicious mistake).

And that's my extremely un-fancy bain-marie. Mum still does not trust me with the fancy cookware. I don't argue, because she's got good reason to, and I'm almost never in the mood to hear her extended list of my past sins/crimes. Good times.

In a bowl, mix together the oats and chopped nuts. Pour the peanut butter+honey mixture and stir until completely combined. Do not add raisins or figs at this stage as they burn pretty fast.

 Oats, Quaker I'm a slave to, but I saw Saffola on sale the other day, and it is pretty decent. Again, it doesn't have to be a snooty brand since it's just going to get cooked. I used raisins, chopped figs and almonds in mine (altogether, fitting snugly into a half-cup). Substitute the dried fruit with prunes if you want it super healthy. Or skip it all, and add chocolate chips to the final mix (after all the cooking is over).

Spread the mix on a ungreased foil-lined tray. Shove it into a preheated oven (I used 175 degrees C) for roughly 15 to 20 minutes.

Whilst the oven does its thing, I pop on some coffee and look forward to relaxing.

Unfortunately, my sister and nephew have other plans.

No, it's not a paranoid Michael Jackson thing; I'm not trying to protect their identities or whatever. I'm just trying to prevent Grevious Bodily Harm under my supervision.

By now, the smells of burning coffee and just-about-right granola waft out of the kitchen.

While still warm, add the dried fruit. Allow to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

I pour the whole thing into a Ziploc bag and stash it in my bag for emergencies. I manage to invent quite a few and polish it off in a couple of days; I've got a family who helps with the eating. And if you're not on health kick, throw in some M & Ms for colour. I didn't miss them though and not missing chocolate-coated candies is the best compliment I can bestow on this humble recipe.