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Recipe: Based On The Best – Broccoli Sourdough Toast

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I believe that there is nothing like a homemade bread, and this especially true if it’s a sourdough. I happen to bake sourdough at home, as you may know either from my Instagram or from previous sharings on this blog. When the sourdough is fresh, I have it either plain or dipped in olive oil as a meal accompaniment. When it’s a day or two old, I like to have it toasted, with different toppings. This broccoli toast is one of them.

As I always say and often repeat, you can make your own version of a dish like this. You may have enjoyed some of my earlier variations, such as: cheesy garlic toast and pesto-parmesan toastie. You can play around with the individual ingredients that go over the toast base too. I have used a local cheddar cheese, for instance. If you want to go even more local, and you’re in India like me, you can add crumbled paneer on top. If you are vegan, crumbled tofu works well instead.

It’s good to have some protein with your carbs and your veggies, so even a simple toast can become a fully nourishing dish. You may have noticed that after a long battle with carbs, I don’t like to diss them anymore. I now think that they are best had in controlled portions, alongside proteins and vegetables. That’s the trick not just to a healthy meal, but to fulfilling your cravings too!

I like to have this broccoli toast as an in-between snack, a filler when I know my dinner is going to be late. At times, it is my dinner itself, along with a bowl of soup. I occasionally even have it as a breakfast. Like any toast, it’s for any time.

Broccoli Sourdough Toast

(Serves 2)

1 big sourdough slice

2 cups broccoli (cut into small florets)

Salt to taste

1 teaspoon chili flakes

½ cup grated cheese

1 teaspoon olive oil

2 tablespoons finely chopped spring onions

 

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Roast the broccoli in the oven along with a sprinkle of salt and a drizzle of olive oil. If you want to take it up a notch, you can caramelise it with a pinch or two of sugar. This really elevates the flavour. Once slightly charred, set aside.

Take a slice of sourdough and spread the roasted broccoli over it. If you like, you can lay the roasted broccoli on a bed of Greek yoghurt over the toast (if yoghurt on toast is something you’re interested in, do check out this cherry tomato yoghurt toast recipe).

Drizzle a little olive oil on top. Now, sprinkle some cheese and toast in the oven until the base of the bread slice is browned.

Remove from the oven and sprinkle some of the spring onions for garnishing. Cut the toast into 2 pieces. Serve hot.

I hope you’ll enjoy this broccoli sourdough toast. It’s one of the many ways in which I enjoy my literal “daily bread”!

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Recipe: Simply Charming – Cherry Tomato Yoghurt Toast

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I seem to be on a toast spree at home, as my family has been very thrilled by my sourdough stylings lately. This has been a hassle-free and highly creative time of experimenting, as I have been exploring the use of different toppings to break the monotony of having toast at breakfast. In addition to my family, in the recent past we have been entertaining quite a bit with house guests. While most out-of-towners prefer the idli and dosa standards of local cuisine here, the toasts I whip up add some variety to their choices. This cherry tomato yoghurt toast in particular was perfect for a day when a friend from the Mediterranean was feeling a little nostalgic for some comfort food.

That’s right: Greek yogurt is one of the key components to this dish. I came across the use of yoghurt on toast during various travels in Europe, and the dahi-lover in me was naturally charmed. I believe it is used as it is lighter than ricotta and mozzarella, yet provides the nutrients of dairy while being easier to digest. However, it can certainly be substituted with feta cheese or any other fresh cheese that is available in your part of the world. If you don’t have Greek yoghurt, hung curd is a great option.

The beautiful organic cherry tomatoes I had at home, which I’d been using on pizzas, were perfect to layer on the toast. The overall effect was quite visually pleasing too.

While I had been toying with the idea of a European-style open-faced toast with yoghurt for a while, I only prepared it for the first time quite recently. This was when the Italian friend I mentioned earlier visited us. He would speak often about his Nona (grandmother) and her amazing cuisine and how much he was missing her during his travels. One day, he remarked that he was craving for a dish that was not Indian and that could sort of transport him back to her kitchen. I can safely say from his appreciative reaction that this toast did exactly that. While the varieties of tomatoes available here differ, he told me that this simple breakfast was the closest he had felt to the tastes of home.

I must say, I too have had a craving for a while: to study authentic Italian cooking. My friend has been asking me to come visit and learn his cuisine from his beloved Nona. If I take him up on his offer, I will be sure to come back with a crateful or two of fresh Italian tomatoes!

Cherry Tomato Yoghurt Toast

(Yield: 1 slice)

I large sourdough slice

½ cup Greek yoghurt or hung curd

1 cup cherry tomatoes

Salt to taste

A pinch of pepper

2 teaspoons olive oil

 

Toast the sourdough slice.

Spread the Greek yoghurt over the toasted slice.

Bake or sauté the cherry tomatoes in a pan, and arrange them over the yoghurt. Sprinkle salt and pepper. Add any herbs you like, such as fresh basil or oregano, drizzle with the olive oil, and serve.

Simplicity is crucial in putting a good breakfast toast together, to save time in the mornings. As you can see, this is a recipe that perfectly fits that criteria. It is easy to prepare, and is very healthy. Honestly, even one slice is quite filling. Did I mention that it’s also delicious? Try it out for yourself and tell me what you think!

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Recipe: Slices Of Perfect Deliciousness – Pesto Parmesan Toastie

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Many of you know that I’m a fan of sourdough, and have been practicing and perfecting the techniques for this slightly tricky but rewarding form of bread-making for years now. As with everything else, the more you attempt it, the better you get at it. I bake sourdough loaves a few times every week, and I’ve seen this for myself. The more you use your hands on the dough, the more deeply you understand its nuances through touch. Feel is a very important part of sourdough making. But the best part comes later, of course: taste. This beautiful pesto Parmesan toastie is one of the many ways that we enjoy a beautiful sourdough loaf at home, and I’m delighted to share my pesto recipe with you today.

Basil, the core ingredient of pesto, is very easily available in many Indian cities, including here in Chennai. I doubt very much that it is Italian basil, and I think that it is likely to either be grown in the hilly regions or else is imported from nearby countries like Thailand. Either way, I have found that basil leaves are easily accessible all year round. So I always have a jar of pesto sitting in my fridge, alongside my tomato purée (which also works well on toast and in so many other dishes too).

Pesto is a sauce that originated in Italy, and its name comes from the Italian word for crushing or pounding, “pestare”. I guess that I honour the traditional method of preparation, because I have observed that I much prefer the South Indian mortar and pestle to the electric blender when I make it. The hand-crushed way results in a coarser and more flavourful paste, which is how it is meant to be. Pesto is versatile, and is often eaten as a pasta sauce. I make it with either walnuts or pine nuts, whichever I have available.

You may recall from other posts that I like making all my masalas powders at home, drying the ingredients in the sun and sending them off to a small local mill to grind them. This has been one of the benefits of the intense heat this year. I’m presently making amchur (raw mango) powder, and I’m also making sun-dried tomatoes – which I use in this toastie.

What this means is that with the sourdough bread, pesto spread and sun-dried tomatoes all being made at home, this pesto Parmesan toastie is almost entirely made from scratch. I don’t have the skills to make Parmesan cheese, unfortunately, but I would if I could!

A good, flavourful Parmesan (both in the pesto and as a garnishing) makes all the difference in this dish. I recently read an article about how the market is flooded with fake Parmesan cheese, with a shocking global turnover rate of billions! This means that finding and choosing a good, authentic Parmesan can be a bit of a challenge. In case you don’t have access to this fabulous cheese variety, you can still make up for it with a good pesto and a good bread. For the pesto, bear in mind that a high quality olive oil is one of the key ingredients to invest in. When it comes to the garnish, you can be flexible. For instance, if you don’t have sun-dried tomatoes, some other vegetable or topping of your choice will work well too.

To return to the sourdough itself briefly, I tend to generally bake it for dinners or for Sunday brunches as it’s a great accompaniment to our family weekend favourite, shakshouka. This summer, with temperatures simply soaring, I tend to take the dough with me whenever I sit in an AC room. This is to protect it, as temperature plays an important role in the fermentation. That’s how committed I am to my sourdough practice! This is why there’s always a lot of it at home, and since pesto is also a sauce that I also often have plenty of, they are a perfect pairing. As exotic as it may seem, pesto is surprisingly easy to make, as you’ll see in the recipe below.

 

Pesto Parmesan Toastie

(Yield: A small jar of pesto; two half-toasties)

 

Pesto

2 cups fresh, clean basil leaves

3 garlic pods

¼ cup olive oil

Salt to taste

2-3 tablespoons pine nuts (or walnuts)

A pinch of pepper

½ cup Parmesan cheese (grated)

 

Toastie

2 slices sourdough bread

2 tablespoons pesto

3-5 sun-dried tomatoes

Butter for the bread

4-5 slivers of Parmesan cheese

 

This recipe focuses on how to prepare the pesto. In a blender, add the pine nuts and garlic. Pulse until coarsely mixed. Add the Parmesan and repeat. As I said above, you can use a mortar and pestle instead if you prefer the same.

Then, add the basil leaves and pulse once again, careful to keep the mixture coarsely blended. A smooth blend is not preferable for pesto.

Slowly drizzle in the olive oil, while occasionally using a rubber spatula to scrape down the sides of the mixer jar.

Finally, add the salt and pepper before storing the pesto in the fridge. Use a clean glass jar, and top it up with a little bit of olive oil. You can prepare it a day ahead of when you need to use it. It will still be fresh.

To assemble the toasties, take two slices of sourdough bread and apply butter to one side of one of them. Generously slather one side of the other slice with pesto, creating a nice, thick layer. Top this up with sun-dried tomatoes and Parmesan cheese, as desired.

Close the sandwich by bringing the two slices together. Butter the top and toast it on a pan until the bread turns golden. Cut into halves and serve. I like to have this as an early dinner, and I find that I don’t get hungry again for the rest of the night. It’s also great as an any-time snack.

Dishes like these are easy to assemble and are great ways to enjoy a slice of good artisanal bread, or to elevate any regular bread that you may have. I hope this pesto Parmesan toastie will delight you! If you enjoyed this recipe, you may also want to try out my cheesy, spicy, garlicky sourdough toast.

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Recipe: You Won’t Stop At A Slice – Cheesy, Spicy, Garlicky Sourdough Toast

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When it comes to any dish that I’m a novice at, I love making it as often as possible so that I can learn from each attempt. Novelty is part of the motivation, but improving my success rate is the real goal. The more you use your hands, the better you get at anything. For you, this may be true for one of your own creative passions, and for me this is all about baking and photography. This was certainly the case for me with sourdough. Those of you who’ve followed my sourdough journey through my Instagram Stories over the past couple of years will know how enthusiastically I’ve pursued working on it. Sourdough is all the rage everywhere at the moment, since the pandemic has made so many people  explorers in the kitchen, so it’s especially exciting for me to share this sourdough toast recipe today.

I bake sourdough every other day, and ever since I began doing this, my family doesn’t eat any other kind of bread. They prefer this natural variety to yeast-filled commercially-produced bread, and we use it in many ways. I make pizza bases, loaves and more all the time, and use them in main courses, sides (such as with a lovely minestrone soup, the recipe for which I promised you recently and will share soon) and snacks. At home, we are all very into daily exercise and healthy eating, so we have lots of one pot meals, and a slice of sourdough on the side is always nice. I find that this sourdough toast especially makes for a filling lunch, and that helps us reduce the number of heavy meals we have at supper time.

The idea of making a simple, yet fabulously delicious, sourdough toast came up during our planning for my husband’s birthday recently. This is not an innovative recipe as such, yet it’s one that suits the occasion of a celebration during lockdown. It’s a lovely appetizer using wholesome and easily available ingredients for a small celebration. We decided to have a picnic in our own garden, and I was thinking about which healthy dishes I could make to balance out the indulgence of the white cake I’d be baking when I came up with this idea.

Now, the white cake itself has a funny story behind it. You see, my husband adores the tea cake from the McRennett bakery, which many of us who grew up in Chennai will associate with childhood memories. As it happens, I can’t stand that cake, as it has a very strong vanilla essence smell. We have a running joke in the house that no matter what fabulous thing I have baking in the oven, my husband will say, “I’m going to get a McRennett cake!”, knowing it will tick me off. This year, I turned the joke on him by saying that I’d order him that tea cake for his birthday and not bake any of my own specialties. Secretly, I had a plan to prepare a cake that was inspired by his lifelong favourite, but which I would elevate with my own twists to a level that would make him forget the original. He must have gotten a whiff of my plan, because he said to me that if I could achieve the softness of the original, he wouldn’t mind trying mine. Well, I baked a lovely tea cake with real vanilla and pretty white icing (I rarely ice my cakes at re:store, so you know this was a special treat!) which he enjoyed very much… but it didn’t quite unseat the McRennett as his favourite!

Oh well! At least I can safely say that this cheesy, spicy, garlicky sourdough toast was the hit of the picnic! I’ll always associate it with the memories of the fun we had that day, spending time together as a family in our garden. That’s the thing about food prep: when something is made to suit a particular need or occasion, the dish also gains meaning. Is it for a daily meal, is it for a special person, is it for an event? By thoughtfully planning the lockdown birthday picnic menu to feature a healthy but delicious snack like this, and making sure I prepared it in a way that was also special, the dish became impressed upon my memory and in my culinary repertoire.

Before I share the recipe, here’s a quick note on sourdough itself, just in case you’re curious about what it is. It’s the traditional, ancient way of making bread, which people around the world used for millennia before baker’s yeast was invented. It’s based on natural fermentation, with air pockets created by the same, and it rises beautifully. You can keep the starter going for ages, just like yoghurt. For me, it took a few miserable failures before I managed to get mine going. Before that, friends generously shared their own starters with me, which I fed and nurtured, but there’s a different kind of challenge and a sense of achievement when you’ve made your own. The learning is continuous, especially when you have to take into account variables like weather conditions. Sourdough maintenance is like plant maintenance.  Making sourdough in Chennai weather is a struggle, as the natural temperature is not really conducive, while air-conditioning dries out the starter. I’ve managed to make a few chips and freeze them just in case my sourdough dies on me, and I’ll need to start it all over again. In the meanwhile, we are truly enjoying the bounty of the current batch.

I am almost sure that foodies following this blog have either been making their own sourdough, or have access to a store-bought loaf, so I’ll jump right ahead to what you can do with it, rather than spend time on how to grow it. In case you don’t have it on hand, you can use white bread or any bread you like.

Cheesy, Spicy, Garlicky Sourdough Toast

(Yield: 4 slices)

 

4 slices toast

1 teaspoon oil

2 cups chopped vegetables (bell peppers, onions, garlic, coriander or parsley, cooked corn)

1 tablespoon chopped jalapeño peppers

¼ teaspoon grated ginger

Coriander chutney (alternative: pesto)

Salt to taste

Chili flakes

Butter as required

1 cup grated cheese (alternative: tofu/paneer)

Heat a pan and add the oil. Add the garlic and ginger, and then add the chopped vegetables. Stir-fry on a high flame. This mixture doesn’t take more than 5 minutes to sauté. Add the salt. Set aside. Allow to cool.

Prepare the slices of sourdough by buttering them lightly. Next, spread the coriander chutney (or pesto, if you prefer) over the butter.

Now, add a heaped spoonful of vegetables over the chutney/pesto. Top this with grated cheese or tofu.

Place the bread in the oven and allow to toast/bake for about 10 minutes or until the cheese melts and the slice of sourdough turns golden underneath.

Remove the slices from the oven and sprinkle with the chili flakes. Serve warm.

This cheesy, spicy, garlicky sourdough toast called to mind a variety of toasts my family has enjoyed over the years. When I was growing up, my mum used to make a version of masala and mashed potatoes with toasted bread. My husband is an ardent fan of  Bombay toast, as you may remember. In lieu of either, my sourdough toast – rich in fresh vegetables – is healthier, without skimping on taste.

Feel free to substitute the vegetables or even the spices as per availability and preference. You may want to increase the quantity of some based on your taste as well (I’m personally a big fan of corn and bell peppers too). If you prefer to go vegan, just replace the butter with olive oil, and either tofu or paneer are tasty and healthy alternatives to cheese.

This version has become my go-to every time I feel like having a snack. When I’m done with my workout and feel peckish, I whip up a slice or two. I sometimes also have it drizzled with olive oil and a sprinkling of salt without adding the spices. Given the lockdown and the limited vegetables that are on hand on some days, I improvise the ingredients. No matter how I make it, it’s unbelievably tasty!

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Recipe: A Dish Best Served Cold – Watermelon Gazpacho

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Perhaps the combination of the sweltering Chennai summer and the memories evoked by my last post, on travels through Spain, were what made me crave this Andalusian dish. Gazpacho is a kind of cold soup, not soup gone cold but rather soup which has never been heated. Tomato is often the base, but I took the element of cooling a step further and used a fruit that is a staple for us during this time of year: juicy, ripe, sweet watermelon.

Chennai being hot through most of the year, gazpacho is always welcomed in my home. But the summer demands extra cooling, so first I tried my hand at a yoghurt-based soup with mint. But it ended up tasting a bit like raita and was quickly dismissed from my dining table. That’s when the burst of seasonal fruit at Namma Suvai  – a place I like both for their honest and open policy of having back end (farmers) and front end operations meet, as well as for their superb organic range – gave me a brainwave. I picked up the watermelons, which grow best in warm climates and provide a much needed hydrating and cooling effect to the body. I had not eaten watermelon gazpacho before, even though I knew it existed, and so was all the more excited to try it.

Gazpacho is exceedingly easy to make, just a simple puree, and as I prepared it, I recalled how I used to try to get the kids to eat healthy when they were younger. It’s quite a task, as all moms know, and most of you will be familiar with the technique of disguising (or as the kids say “disgust-ing!”) soups with all kinds of vegetables. I would add locally grown, water-based vegetables like bottle gourd or ridge gourd along with carrots and onions to the basic tomato – all while making sure the red colour of the tomato, the vegetable most popular to their palate, remained. Needless to say, I’d feed it to them quickly, before they noticed their red soup was full of green goodness! As they grew older, they caught on to the trick and refused to eat soup unless it was made to their taste and preferred proportions. Sometimes, they would eat it just to please me, but then say “Ma, did you think we didn’t know?” Fortunately, their tastes became refined once they saw their own friends beginning to enjoy soups socially. Of course, no matter what age the kids are, a parent is still a parent, and those of us who are parents never stop trying to ensure that they are eating well.

Even though I no longer needed to disguise this soup so it looked like tomato, maybe a little of that old desire to make my dishes as attractive for my kids as possible was still in me, so I wanted this gazpacho to be not just tasty but also vibrant both visually and on the tastebuds. So I added garlic, some colourful bell peppers and a hint of tomato to it. Raw chopped mango brought some tangy Indian-ness too, and a hint of chaat masala added familiar spice. The garnishing was meant to catch the eye, and so it did. Not only did the kids reach for it, but we had a surprise guest for dinner, and she thoroughly enjoyed my watermelon gazpacho along with my homemade sourdough.

As those of you who have followed my Instagram Stories for a while know, sourdough was something I worked at every day, entirely convinced I would eventually get the hang of it, and I did. It’s a very long and cumbersome process, but one every baker should experiment with. Sourdough is a way to make bread without yeast, allowing the natural bacteria to ferment in the air. I now make it so often that I have so much bread that I end up making accompaniments to it instead of the other way round.

One such accompaniment, of course, is this bright and flavour-rich watermelon gazpacho, which brings together sweetness, spice and some much-needed summer cooling.

Watermelon Gazpacho

(Yield: 5-6 cups)

2 ½ cups watermelon – deseeded

¼ cup tomato

¼ cup chopped red capsicum

¼ cup spring onions

3-4 cloves garlic

2 tablespoon olive oil

5 basil leaves

2 teaspoons any good vinegar/red wine/sherry or a big squeeze of lemon

3 small slices jalapeño

2 tablespoons finely chopped raw mango

¼ teaspoon chaat masala

Salt to taste (I used Himalayan pink)

Toppings:

Finely sliced avocado

¼ cup finely sliced red capsicum

2 tablespoons finely sliced spring onion

2 tablespoons olive oil

The method to make this watermelon gazpacho is extremely simple. Just keep the toppings aside and put all the other ingredients into a blender. Blend, but let the mixture remain coarse.

Pour into pretty serving glasses or bowls and garnish with the toppings. Gazpacho is meant to be served cold, and whether your guests will enjoy it as a soup or as a crunchy beverage is up to how you serve it!

This watermelon gazpacho is truly a mélange of flavours: from spicy chaat masala to sweet watermelon, and the textures of soft avocado and crisp raw mango in between. You may think so many ingredients wouldn’t go well together, but believe me – they do. I so enjoyed having this gazpacho with sourdough slices, a light and healthy combination that formed a perfectly filling (and very satisfying!) dinner. Do give it a try while watermelons are in season, and let me know what you think!

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