Growing up in India, baked beans and eggs were one of the few non-traditional breakfasts that we ate at home. While eggs were easy to come by, and provided a necessary source of protein for us as kids (we were otherwise vegetarian), cans of baked beans were not as readily available. Whenever our parents managed to find them in stock while purchasing our groceries, my siblings and I would know that there would be a very special breakfast the following day, and would eagerly anticipate it. All three of us craved those delicious canned beans. There would never be any for our parents as we would finish them off between us, often fighting over them too! Memories of those childhood mornings inspired me to create homemade, Indian-style masala baked beans – served, of course, on my beloved sourdough toast.
My brother was a rower at a national and then a professional level, and I looked at him in awe for this and many reasons. His diet was naturally that of an athlete’s, and when those precious cans came our way he would make a claim on how he deserved the biggest share for this reason. There would be arguments over the baked beans at the breakfast table, but in the end, we all got a good portion. His was quite a large one, of course. Watching my brother wolf down six whole eggs and a bowl full of baked beans is still a sight I can conjure up before me!
Fast forward to the present day and canned baked beans are everywhere at any supermarket. They were off my menu at home for a long time as I tend to avoid food that is overly processed or contains too many preservatives. At one point, I even tried to soak the beans and make them myself, but never got around to doing it regularly. More recently, I’ve found that when I stay at hotels and head down to the buffets in the morning, the baked beans that are always a part of the spread often look so bland compared to the other items.
However, I’ve found a beautiful middle ground between my childhood memories of coveting baked beans to how they seemed to have lost their charm for me as an adult. That is by spicing them up a bit, making an Indian-style version that suits our palates. Using these masala baked beans as a topping for sourdough toast, which I bake regularly as you may know, turned out to be a great idea.
While my morning protein intake in terms of legumes had long been replaced by homemade moong sprouts, which are non-sweet and healthy, it was fun to bring this nostalgic dish back to my dining table. While pondering my own history with the dish, I also wondered when baked beans had come to India, and whether the British brought them here. To my surprise, I learned that the dish was originally Native American, transforming over time due to colonization, and later on through mass production in the 20th century. Would you know when they first came to India? Do you also have childhood memories of occasional days when an elusive can had been attained?
Masala Baked Beans On Toast
(Yield: 1 slice)
1 slice sourdough
1½ cups baked beans
½ cup finely chopped onions
1 tablespoon olive oil or butter
Salt to taste
1 teaspoon chilli powder
½ cup chopped tomatoes
¼ cup finely chopped coriander leaves
Heat the oil in a pan. Add the onions and sauté. Then, add the tomatoes and all the masalas (spices and condiments) one by one. Allow the mixture to bubble up.
Toast the sourdough bread slice and spread the masala baked beans over it. Be generous. Then, simply enjoy!
In case you missed it, my previous recipe was also a toast – a rather more exotic cherry tomato and Greek yoghurt toast to be precise! I hope you’ll check that out too. There will probably be a few more interesting toast toppings coming up on this blog soon, so I hope you’re in the mood for some fun breakfasts!
