Hi. Hello. Bonjour. Ohayou gozaimasu. It’s been two whole weeks since my last post and I’ve been doing precisely one thing since last I wrote: Unpacking. Making my new home livable; pleasurable, even. But before I got to the unpacking part, there was the packing. Days of it. The moving (my couch barely made it out of my old apartment and definitively did *not* fit through the front door of my new place; I’m now on the hunt for a new one). And when I finally made it from West Hollywood to Topanga, I came down with a nasty cold.
I spent most of the first week of life in my new home in bed, marveling at the view out my bedroom window. I owe you pictures, but for now, suffice to say my party trick from this day forth will be to ask people to come lie down in bed with me just to see the sight. It’s breathtaking, the Santa Monica mountains exhaling their glory across the horizon, often wreathed in mists, kissed by languid rays of ocean light.
And this, my friends, is my very first shoot in the new home. Soon, I’ll be shooting from the kitchen, too—I’m so thrilled to have an open kitchen space that, while still very modest, allows me to shoot and prep in it. After almost five years of zero counter space, chopping on a cutting board tenuously balanced over my kitchen sink, bumping into every imaginable appliance just to turn from stove to trash, I feel like I can breathe again.
And today, live from my new home, I bring you: My favorite French toast of life, from my dear friend Molly Yeh’s new book Yogurt, from Short Stack Editions. Spoiler alert: It’s completely, deliciously, umami-smackingly savory. But before we discuss the French toast, we must discuss Molly and the book as a whole.
So tell me: What do you know about yogurt? What are your yogurt feelings? Who are you when you think about yogurt? If you’ve ever asked yourself any of these questions, or find yourself desperately wanting to know the answer to them, Yogurt is the book for you.
Molly’s flavor palate—influenced by her Jewish and Chinese backgrounds—is nuanced, complex, ingenious and deeply comfortable, like that favorite outfit you wear over and over again because it just makes you look and feel so dang good. The recipes in Yogurt are exemplary in that regard: reading through the table of contents, I wanted absolutely everything.
Short Stack Editions publishes neatly designed recipe curations from luminary chefs, all focused around a single ingredient. Here, our subject is the creamy, the delicious, the tangy: yogurt. In Yogurt’s pages, you’ll find labneh grilled cheese with tomato-thyme jam, harissa braised chickpeas with feta, grilled lemon, and yogurt, a mujadara (a Levantine lentil and rice dish) volcano with spicy yogurt lava, blueberry labneh scones, and this brunch pièce de résistance: savory challah French toast with sumac yogurt and pickled onions. Yow.
On the matter of challah, I’d be remiss not to tell you that my go-to challah recipe—the challah that has made Jews and gentiles the world over swoon with delight—also comes from Molly’s kitchen. The recipe for her basic challah dough is in her first book, Molly on the Range, which you should definitely own if you don’t already. This is the only challah recipe you will ever need. And if you make it, you’ll be one step closer to this glorious dish.
This was my first foray into savory French toast, and I can’t wait to make the journey again and again. While you look at your calendar to start plotting the soonest possible morning you can make this (it’s eye-rollingly easy—you could absolutely treat yourself to a fancy weekday breakfast or breakfast for dinner in a flash)—hop on over to my Instagram for a chance to win a copy of the book!
Molly’s original recipe didn’t call for avocado, but ’tis the season here in California, and I couldn’t resist. Have fun dressing your savory French toast up however you like, and make sure to order a copy of Molly’s latest masterpiece: Yogurt.
CHALLAH FRENCH TOAST WITH SUMAC YOGURT & PICKLED ONIONS
Ingredients
For the pickled onions:
- 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
- 1 large red onion, thinly sliced
For the French toast:
- 3/4 cup whole-milk Greek yogurt, plus more for serving
- 3/4 teaspoon sumac
- kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 4 large eggs
- 4 thick slices day-old challah
- unsalted butter, for the pan
- a few pinches of za'atar
- hot sauce
- cilantro leaves
- sliced avocado (Kale & Caramel addition!)
Instructions
Make the pickled onions:
- In a saucepan, combine 1 cup of water with the vinegar, salt and sugar and bring to a boil. Place the onion in a heat-safe container and pour the boiling mixture over the onion. Let cool slightly, cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour before using. The pickled onions will last in the refrigerator for a while, so go ahead and do this step up to a few days in advance.
Make the sumac yogurt:
- In a small bowl, mix together the yogurt, sumac, 1/4 teaspoon of salt and a few turns of pepper. Set aside.
Make the French toast:
- In a large shallow bowl, beat together the eggs and milk. Using a fork, dip the challah in the mixture, flipping it so that each side soaks up the egginess. Heat a skillet over medium-high heat and melt a good layer of butter in the pan. Working in batches, cook the challah on both sides until browned, adding more butter to the pan as needed. Season the French toast with salt and pepper on both sides.
- To serve, top each slice of French toast with a good plop of yogurt, a pile of pickled onions, a pinch of za'atar, a shake of hot sauce and a few leaves of cilantro. Finish with avocado if you like. Enjoy!
