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Pain Perdue
Crack one fresh egg on a plate, add one gill milk and one gill cream. Season with half teaspoon salt, three saltspoons white pepper and saltspoon grated nutmeg. Briskly beat with fork two minutes. Cut twelve slices stale French bread, quarter-inch thick, dip each slice in preparation. Heat two tablespoons melted butter in a large frying pan, drop slices of bread in the pan, one beside another, and fry three minutes on each side. Remove and use as required.
This is the savoury side of pain perdu — no sugar, no cinnamon, but salt, white pepper and nutmeg. It is written as a component rather than a breakfast, which explains the closing line about using it as required.
- Gills and saltspoonsA gill is half a cup, so the custard is one egg to one cup of dairy, half milk and half cream. A saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, making three-quarters of a teaspoon of white pepper and a quarter teaspoon of nutmeg.
- Season to tasteThree-quarters of a teaspoon of white pepper in one cup of custard is assertive by current standards. Start with half that and adjust.
- A quick dip, not a soakOne egg to a cup of liquid is a thin custard and quarter-inch slices are barely more than croutons. Dip and turn once — a few seconds a side. Longer and the bread collapses in the pan.
- Stale bread is the pointDay-old French bread with a dry, open crumb absorbs without disintegrating. Fresh bread turns to paste; if that is all you have, dry the slices in a 300F oven for ten minutes and let them cool.
- More butter, and batchesTwo tablespoons will not carry twelve slices. Work in batches over medium heat, adding a tablespoon or so of fresh butter each time and wiping the pan if the milk solids darken.
- Three minutes a side is longOn a properly heated pan these thin slices colour in about a minute and a half a side. Go by colour, not the clock.
- Yield and useTwelve slices serve four to six as a garnish. Savoury fried bread of this kind was typically used as a support under game or braised meats, in soup, or as a base for creamed dishes and poached eggs; it goes soft within minutes, so fry it last.
Pain perdu means "lost bread" — bread far enough gone to be written off, reclaimed by soaking and frying. The technique is old and widespread in Europe, with early versions appearing under names such as pain perdu in France and "poor knights" (arme Ritter, fattiga riddare) in the Germanic and Scandinavian traditions; the name "French toast" came to be attached chiefly to the sweet form. What sets this version apart is that it is not sweet at all. In the professional kitchens that produced books like this one, the same custard-and-fry method turned stale loaves into croûtes: neat fried supports for a salmi, a stew, or a set of poached eggs, which is why the recipe simply ends by telling the cook to use them as required rather than how to serve them.