Hong Kong-Style French Toast (西多士三款)
Hong Kong-Style French Toast (西多士三款)
A classic dish at Hong Kong Bing Sutt cafe, and pretty easy to whip up at home. It's a bit more crisp on the outside than western-style French toast, and has the benefit of not needing stale bread.
French toast, but deep fried, is a modern Hong Kong classic and this Cantonese version is crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside, and commonly stuffed with a variety of tasty… stuff. Now.. for those that've never eaten around Hong Kong, your very first question might naturally be why there even is a Hong Kong style of French toast. After all, why a dish that was originally Roman might have a French variant or a Spanish version is probably pretty straightforward, but a Cantonese one a little less so.
Well, Hong Kong-style French toast was borne out of the Cantonese Tradition of Bing Sutt (冰室), or 'ice rooms', which originally were eateries in Guangzhou that specialized in their own style of Canto-Western fusion. Post '49 though, a good chunk of that Bing Suhtt tradition ended up moving across the delta into Hong Kong – where they were greeted with a very British system of rigid business licensing requirements.
The Bing Sutt generally didn't have the capital to swing for proper restaurant licenses, so instead they operated as so-called 'snack shops'… which limited their menu to relatively humble fare like tea, sandwiches, and toast.
So when it came to making a French toast, those snack shops ended up developing a much more economical-in-Asia variant. For the coating, they'd skip the milk; and for the bread, they'd use that more chewy sort that you can find at Cantonese bakeries. But to counteract that kind of bread's intrinsic sorta softness, they'd shallow fry it til crisp, and then serve with butter, honey, or condensed milk.
So here in the recipe, we’ll be showing you three variants of this deep fried deliciousness, namely the classic, then stuff it with ovaltine spread, and the much beloved recent invention of gooey salted egg yolk.
Classic Hong Kong French Toast (经典西多士)
Chewy bread, 3 slices
Peanut butter, 1 tbsp
Large egg for coating, 1
Salt (for egg mixture), 1/4 tsp
Oil for frying (about 0.5-1 inch or 2cm deep)
Topping:
Condensed milk, golden syrup, or honey
Knob of butter
Process：
Spread the peanut butter evenly on two slices of bread, then sandwich the spread slices together, cut off the crusts.
In a bowl, beat 1 large egg with 1/4 tsp salt until thoroughly combined.
Dip the toast into the egg mixture, allowing all four sides to soak for about 5 seconds to absorb, then soak both the top and bottom in the egg wash.
Heat oil in a pan to 140°C (280°F). The oil should be about 0.5-1 inch (2cm) deep.
To fry, first, fry the four sealing sides for about 10 seconds each to seal them. Then, place it down, let one side fry for 2 minutes first. Keep the oil between 130°C-150°C the whole time.
Flip the bread to fry the other side. In the mean time, continuously spoon hot oil over the top to achieve an even golden-brown color. Once it starts to puff slightly (after about 90 seconds), optionally fry the four sides to let the color deepens a bit further, then remove from oil and place on a baking rack to drain a for a bit.
Drizzle with condensed milk, golden syrup, or honey, add a knob of butter on top, serve right away.
Ovaltine French Toast (阿华田西多士)
Chewy bread, 3 slices
Peanut butter, 1 tbsp
Large egg for coating, 1
Salt (for egg mixture), 1/4 tsp
Oil for frying (about 0.5-1 inch or 2cm deep)
Topping:
Condensed milk, golden syrup, or honey
Knob of butter
Additional Ovaltine powder for dusting
Process：
Mix Ovomaltine spread with 1/8 tsp salt, spread it mixture evenly on two slices of bread, then sandwich the spread slices together, cut off the crusts.
In a bowl, beat 1 large egg with 1/4 tsp salt until thoroughly combined.
Dip the toast into the egg mixture, allowing all four sides to soak for about 5 seconds to absorb, then soak both the top and bottom in the egg wash.
Heat oil in a pan to 140°C (280°F). The oil should be about 0.5-1 inch (2cm) deep.
To fry, first, fry the four sealing sides for about 10 seconds each to seal them. Then, place it down, let one side fry for 2 minutes first. Keep the oil between 130°C-150°C the whole time.
Flip the bread to fry the other side. In the mean time, continuously spoon hot oil over the top to achieve an even golden-brown color. Once it starts to puff slightly (after about 90 seconds), optionally fry the four sides to let the color deepens a bit further, then remove from oil and place on a baking rack to drain a for a bit.
Dust the toast with additional Ovaltine powder. Drizzle with condensed milk, golden syrup, or honey, add a knob of butter on top, serve right away.
Salted Egg Yolk French Toast (咸蛋黄流心多士)
Chewy bread, 3 slices
Peanut butter, 1 tbsp
Large egg for coating, 1
Salt (for egg mixture), 1/4 tsp
Oil for frying (about 0.5-1 inch or 2cm deep)
Salted egg yolk (咸蛋黄), 2.
Cantonese Rose wine or rice wine/sake (玫瑰露酒/米酒/清酒), ½ tsp.
Sugar, 20g.
Instant custard (吉士粉), 5g.
Milk powder (全脂奶粉), 10g.
Cornstarch (生粉), ½ tsp.
Coconut milk (椰浆), 20g.
Condensed milk (炼奶), 20g.
Water, 65g.
Gelatin powder, ½ tsp.
Butter, 30g.
Process
Mix ½ tsp of wine with 2 salted egg yolks, then steam for 10 minutes.
Mash the steamed egg yolks until pasty, ~3 minutes. If using homemade salt-cured yolks (not whole eggs), grate before mashing.
Mix 20g sugar, 5g instant custard, 10g milk powder, ½ tsp cornstarch, 20g coconut milk, and 20g condensed milk.
Combine 65g water and ½ tsp gelatin powder over a medium-low flame. When dissolved, add 30g butter. When melted, add the milk mixture. Once combined (~2 min), turn off heat and whisk in the mashed salted egg yolks.
Set the mixture in the fridge for ~3 hours, or ~30 minutes in the freezer.
When assembling, cut out a hole in your middle slice first, then use peanut butter and stick it on top of one whole piece of bread, fill in the set salted egg yolk filling, then stick another whole piece on top to “cover” the hole up, cut off the crusts.
In a bowl, beat 1 large egg with 1/4 tsp salt until thoroughly combined.
Dip the toast into the egg mixture, allowing all four sides to soak for about 5 seconds to absorb, then soak both the top and bottom in the egg wash.
Heat oil in a pan to 140°C (280°F). The oil should be about 0.5-1 inch (2cm) deep.
To fry, first, fry the four sealing sides for about 10 seconds each to seal them. Then, place it down, let one side fry for 2 minutes first. Keep the oil between 130°C-150°C the whole time.
Flip the bread to fry the other side. In the mean time, continuously spoon hot oil over the top to achieve an even golden-brown color. Once it starts to puff slightly (after about 90 seconds), just remove from oil and place on a baking rack to drain a for a bit.
Drizzle with condensed milk, add a knob of butter on top, serve right away while it’s hot and melty.
Notes:
The best salted egg yolks are from WHOLE salt-cured eggs, but manufactured ones are also ok.
If you want a more liquidy filling, omit the cornstarch & reduce gelatin to ¼ tsp. But be extra careful when deep frying.
Instant custard can be substituted with half milk powder/half custard powder, or just use all milk powder.
Rose wine can be skipped in a pinch.