Ooh la la: Chef’s touch turns homey classic to artful cuisine

September 15, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Contra Costa Times

WALNUT CREEK, Calif.

It sits there so temptingly, with its buttery, crisp edges and soft custard center, drizzled with syrup and topped with a pouf of whipped cream. Sure, you can make French toast at home, but when professional chefs get involved, this homey brunch favorite becomes ethereal bliss.

“It’s so simple to make. It has this comfort thing,” says Josh Thomsen, executive chef at the Meritage restaurant at Berkeley’s Claremont Hotel. “And there’s nothing better than food you can pour syrup on.”

Legions of happy brunchgoers would agree. French toast is certainly something you can make at home — it’s nothing more than saut ed, eggy bread, after all — but the homely mixture achieves luxurious status in the hands of a restaurant or hotel chef. It’s kind of required.

“Being in the restaurant business, you have to elevate that,” says Thomsen. “We take the simplest things and make them great.”

Thomsen’s take is draped in orange butter and passion fruit syrup.

“We cut it corner to corner, with a big quenelle of orange butter — orange zest, orange juice reduced to a syrup, folded into whipped unsalted butter — on top,” he says. “I add passion-fruit pur e to beautiful maple syrup and reduce it down a little bit, let it cook really slow, and that goes on the side, with a little powdered sugar.”

The Duck Club at the Lafayette Park Hotel serves its version with a honey mascarpone filling. And an ever-changing array of seasonal toppings and compotes adorns the cinnamon-flecked French toast at the Village California Bistro in San Jose’s Santana Row.

But really outrageous French toast begins with the bread.

“Brioche — that’s the secret,” says Village Bistro owner Mary Turner. “The toppings have been changed so many times. It’s fun because you get tired of the same thing. We change the compote weekly — that doesn’t even count. But the bread’s the secret that stays the same.”

Chefs Aaron Wright and Clint Davies at Larkspur’s Tavern at Lark Creek favor thick slices of sweet Polynesian bread for their version and top it with caramelized apples, but Thomsen is a brioche man, too.

“Right off the bat, you’re talking about a bread made with a lot of egg, yellow and very, very soft,” he says. “I slice a pretty thick piece — this is the secret — an inch thick. Then we soak it.”

Home cooks tend to dip generic sandwich bread into their egg mixture, give it a quick flip and segue directly to the saut pan. But that puts all the flavoring on the outside of the bread, Thomsen says.

“When you marinate meat, OK, the center of the meat needs to have that marinade or what’s the point? So I’ve taken that approach to French toast,” he says. “[We take] Tahitian vanilla beans, open up the insides and scrape them out and add them to the whipped eggs. You push the bread down underneath the surface of the egg, so it’s totally coated, for five minutes, then flip it over. It basically sits in the egg for 10 minutes. You literally see the bits of the vanilla bean permeate in there.”

The bread is saut ed until it’s golden brown on both sides, and then it’s tucked into a 350-degree oven for five to six minutes more.

“It ends up souffl -ing,” he says. “You can see it basically dome, but it’s got this custardy texture through and through. I’m actually wanting to get a piece right now.”

The cherry on top, so to speak, is the topping — and it’s there that restaurant chefs let their imaginations run wild. Turner fantasizes about cr ®me br ªl e French toast. Chef Jarad Gallagher riffs on a Bananas Foster theme for his Sunday brunch dish at Oakland’s Lake Chalet Seafood Bar & Grill. His cinnamon-battered French toast is topped with banana slices and drizzled with a syrupy mixture of brown sugar, butter, rum and banana liqueur.

The thing to remember, says Thomsen, is that the basics — the eggs, milk and bread — are always in your kitchen. Take a little extra time to make a passion-fruit syrup, for example, which can be combined with maple syrup for added punch — or a flavored butter, which can be stored in the fridge or freezer — and you’ll have not just one fabulous Sunday brunch, but many.

LARK CREEK BRANDY CUSTARD FRENCH TOAST WITH CARAMELIZED APPLES

Serves 2

4 large eggs, beaten

11/2 cups milk

1/2 cup heavy cream

1 tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, fresh ground

1/4 teaspoon salt

Brandy, to taste

5 slices Polynesian or white bread, cut 1-inch thick

Canola oil

Caramelized apples

4 tablespoons butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Pinch each ground cloves, nutmeg, salt

2 Fuji apples, peeled, cut in 1/2-inch dice

Whisk the eggs. Add milk and cream. Add sugar, vanilla, nutmeg, salt and brandy to taste. (The custard can be made 24 hours in advance.)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Soak bread slices in custard for 10 minutes.

Heat a skillet. Add a little canola oil to coat, then cook the bread until lightly brown on each side. Transfer to a cookie sheet, and bake 10-12 minutes, so the bread souffl s.

Meanwhile, make the caramelized apples: Melt the butter, sugar and spices in a saut pan on medium-high heat. Add apples and cook until apples are fork-tender and the sauce is syrupy.

Remove French toast from the oven, cut on a bias and arrange on two plates. Spoon warm apples over the toast and serve.

Chefs de cuisine Aaron Wright and Clint Davies, Tavern at Lark Creek, Larkspur, Calif.

Note: The amount of batter you’ll need for your French toast will vary according to type of bread and soaking time.

LAKE CHALET FRENCH TOAST

3 slices brioche, sliced 1/2-inch thick, per serving

Butter for frying

Banana, peeled and sliced in 1/2-inch rounds

Powdered sugar

Whipped cream

Bananas Foster syrup:

1 tablespoon salted butter

1 tablespoon brown sugar

1 tablespoon banana liqueur

1 tablespoon Meyer Rum

Lemon wedge

Cinnamon batter:

1 cup whole milk

1 cup half and half

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 tablespoon vanilla

1/4 cup sugar

2 eggs

Make the syrup by melting the butter and sugar in a small pan. Deglaze the pan with rum and banana liqueur; bring to a boil. Squeeze in lemon juice to taste.

Whisk the cinnamon batter ingredients together. Refrigerate until ready to cook.

Dip each piece of bread in the batter for a few seconds. Heat a little butter in a nonstick pan over low heat; add toast slices and fry till golden brown.

Top the French toast with sliced bananas and the syrup, dust with sugar, add a pouf of whipped cream and serve.

Chef Jarad Gallagher, Lake Chalet Seafood Bar & Grill, Oakland, Calif.

Note: The amount of batter you’ll need for your French toast will vary according to type of bread and soaking time.