Fen Tos

Desi French Toast

Desi French Toast, Image by Omkar Hande

This post is a tribute to Gajlaxmi or Gaj or Jhopdi (unfortunately) as some of us would call it in BITS Goa, which is a plain shack serving humble savory egg dishes all day. This place was our go-to spot all 4 years of engineering, whenever we could not tolerate mess food. The man and his wife who ran this are as legendary as the place itself. A beautiful article has already been written in their honor by fellow BITSians here — do give it a read, especially if you‘re from Goa campus.

“Fen Tos” as it was spelled on Gaj’s menu, was an Indian adaptation or rather what they thought a French Toast should be. In this post, I will try my best to recreate this magical dish that helped us get through college life.

Let’s get to it.

Recipe

This is more of a sandwich than a toast. We are going to make two Indianised versions of french toast and eventually make a sandwich from them with cheese. I’d like to stress here on two ingredients which should not be compromised within this recipe, as they hold the secret to the taste — Amul Cheese — the white-colored cheese slices and Amul butter. In my experience, Amul cheese works best with any desi flavor of eggs (preparations that have red chili powder, green chili, coriander, etc). Amul butter, of course, makes everything better. Good quality sandwich bread will reward you with a sturdier structure. If your bread is stale or of poor quality, it is going to break as soon as you soak it in eggs.

Ingredients

• 1 whole egg
• 1 tsp red chili powder
• 1 tsp turmeric powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 100ml milk or cream
• 2 tbsp chopped coriander
• 1 tbsp chopped onion
• 2 chopped green chili
• 1 slice of Amul cheese
• 50g Amul butter
• 2 slices of sandwich bread

Method

1. Beat together the egg, red chili, turmeric, salt, coriander, green chili, and milk. In this mixture, soak two slices of bread. Be careful to not oversoak, as this might break the bread. Make sure the chilis and the coriander also stick to the slice.
2. Now on a non-stick pan, melt the butter. Toast the bread slices in butter, roughly 3 min on each side or till you get a nice brown crust on both sides. Set aside when done.
3. Add some more butter to the pan. Now add the chopped onions, coriander, some salt, and chopped chilis and saute for a minute. Set this mixture aside in a bowl.
4. We will assemble our sandwich now. Lay 1 slice of the toast. Add the onion mixture to it. Now lay the cheese slice and seal it with the other toast.
5. Transfer the sandwich back to the pan for some more heat. Toast for a minute or two on each side till the cheese melts and the two slices stick to each other. Add in some more butter for extra goodness.

Done. Cut the sandwich in half to serve. You can verify your result with the image below. Although a cup of Chai would be great, a 200ml coke bottle is what we used to have it with back in college 😄

Detailed image of the cross-section

Cross-section of the Desi French Toast, Image by Omkar Hande

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