A few months ago one of my friends had a South East Asia themed dinner party. Japan is more Eastern than South Eastern Asia, but I went ahead with a matcha-based recipe because I had been given a challah earlier that day and this was the only way I could imagine bringing french toast to the party. The dish was pretty popular, so I made it for breakfast again last weekend - it was delicious with raspberries and Elliott's tasty lattes!
As is often the case, I used Joy of Cooking for the basic french toast recipe and then modified it. The first time I made this, I tried to whisk in the matcha powder directly to the egg/sugar/milk mixture. This resulted in the matcha powder just clumping up. Instead, I found that what works best is if you dissolve the matcha power in a tablespoon or so of boiling water and then mix the matcha solution into the egg mixture.
Once you get the matcha dissolved, the rest of the french toast is pretty standard. Just mix up the eggs, milk, matcha solution, and sugar and dip the bread into the mixture. I prefer to use challah bread and I cut it into pretty thick pieces - about 1 inch.
After dipping the bread, let some of the mixture drip off before putting the toast in the pan so it doesn't get too soggy. I also find that it's best to minimize the distance between the mixing bowl and pan to help with cleanup.
To accompany the french toast, I also came up with this mango coconut sauce, which turned out surprisingly well. To make it, you just food process frozen mango cubes and a can of coconut milk. Once that's smooth, you pour it into a pot, add sugar, and cook until it's about the consistency of pudding. I find it cooks down in about the time it takes to make the french toast.
Depending on your sauce to toast ratio, you may end up with extra mango sauce. However, I find that it tastes delicious in greek yogurt or chia seed pudding.
I'd highly recommend serving the toast with black sesame seeds sprinkled on top. Here's a close up of the finished product!
Recipe
Ingredients for Coconut Mango Sauce
- 1 1/2 cups of frozen mango chunks
- 1 can full fat coconut milk
- 2 tbs. sugar (or more if you like a sweeter sauce)
Process
- Put the mango and coconut milk in a food processor and blend until smooth.
- Transfer the mixture to a small pot and add sugar.
- Cook, stirring ocasionally, on medium heat until thickened to the consistency of pudding (incidentally, about the time it takes to make matcha french toast)
Ingredients for Matcha French Toast
- 1 loaf challah
- 1 tbs matcha tea powder (make sure you get pure matcha powder and not the stuff that's mixed with green tea)
- 1-2 tbs boiling water
- 6 eggs
- 1 cup milk
- 3 tbs. sugar
- Oil or butter for greasing pan
Process
- Cut challah into 1" slices.
- Place matcha in a small bowl. Add boiling water and whisk with a fork until matcha solution is smooth and there are no clumps
- Add eggs, milk, sugar, and matcha solution to a medium mixing bowl and whisk until smooth.
- Heat one or two pans on the stove over medium-low heat and lightly grease the pans with butter or spray oil
- Dip each piece of challah in the egg mixture until soaked through. Hold the piece of challah over the bowl until it can be moved without dripping everywhere and transfer it to the hot pan.
- Cook until the bottom side is lightly browned (about 2 min), then flip and repeat on the other side. Be careful not to let the french toast get too burned (unless you're into that).
- Remove french toast from stove and serve immediately with mango sauce and black sesame seeds.