My 100th post - The Ultimate Breakfast

At last, my 100th post! I wouldn't think I would write so much about food. Thanks for all you readers and food bloggers for inspirations, and a special thanks to all my research collegues, condensed matter physicists, skeptics, knife salesman, friends and my brother to make the collective cooking all possible. I hope this blog help to improve your culinary skills.

One of my friend find that I don't have any real breakfast recipe as all of them are mainly dessert-like breakfast dish. So, my friend decided to organize a collective cooking early in the morning, and this is a great theme for the 100th post. Four of us managed to wake up early on a Sunday. Three of us made breakfast.

First, scrumptious banana pancakes were made by my Mexican friend, Mon. She basically inspired herself with many pancakes recipe online and made her own recipe.

Banana Pancakes
Serves 4
Preparation Time : 5 minutes
Cooking Time : 10 mins
Printable Recipe

Ingredients

2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/8 cup oil
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 riped bananas
1 1/4 cups flour
Butter

Procedure

1. In a blender, beat eggs, milk and oil. Incorporate sugar, salt and baking powder. Finally, add bananas, blend until the batter is homogeneous. Blend in the flour.

2. In a large skillet, melt 1/2 tsp butter and pour a 5-inch droplet of the batter to the pan.

3. Cook until bubbly. Flip and cook again on the other side. Serve.

The second dish is made by my French friend, Mathieu. He made Pain Perdu (or Lost Bread) which is also known as French Toast, but the French people hate to call it by this name. They call Lost Bread because it is a way to use stale bread, basically hard bread dipped in a mixture of milk and bread and served dusted with powdered or granulated sugar.

Pain Perdu (Lost Bread)
Serves 4
Preparation Time : 5 mins
Cooking Time : 10 mins
Printable Recipe

Ingredients

8 slices day-old bread
2 eggs
2 tbsp white sugar
1/2 cup milk
1 dash salt
Butter and oil
Icing sugar or granulated sugar for dusting

Procedure

1. In a toaster, toast bread for 30-45 seconds to get a crunchy taste out of the bread.

2. In a large bowl, beat eggs, milk, sugar and salt.

3. In a large skillet, heat oil and melt butter over medium-high heat.

4. Dip toasted bread to the egg mixture and transfer to skillet. Cook for 1-2 minutes on each side until golden. Serve with syrup.

Now, my share of the event was to make a warm and rich homemade blueberry sauce which goes well with both the pancakes and the pain perdu.

Blueberry Sauce
Makes 2 cups
Cooking Time : 10 mins
Printable Recipe

Ingredients

1/3 cup white sugar
2 tsp cornstarch
1/4 cup cold water
2 cups blueberries (fresh or frozen)
1 tsp lemon juice (optional)

Procedure

1. In a small saucepan, stir sugar, cornstarch and water until smooth.

2. Add blueberries and heat until boiling. Stir occasionally.

3. Reduce heat to low. Cook for 1 minute longer. Stir in lemon juice. Serve warm.

Finally, for the drink, my Mexican friend uses soya milk with a Spanish touch of orgeat mix. Orgeat mix (Horchata) is bought in powder form mainly composed of a mix ground rice, cinnamon, sesame seeds and other ingredients and must be mix with a liquid.

Soy Milk with Horchata
Makes 1 cup
Preparation Time : 2 mins

Ingredients

1 cup soy milk
1 tbsp orgeat mix (horchata)
1 tbsp white sugar

Procedure

1. Combine all the ingredients until the dry ingredients are dissolved.

After all this cooking, here is how our well-decorated table look like...

Lemonade

I have been very busy the past few days working on my scientific article and preparing my trip to Seoul. I got invited a few months ago to assist a conference at the end of June for four days. However, it is not about food but related to my research. Basically, the top 26 scientists in my field of research are assembled in one place to give a 45 mins talk. Long story short, my school is paying me to go to this conference and I'll take my vacation there also. I'll probably post some Korean food here.

It is summer and it is hot outside, a refreshing drink would help. I'm pretty sure you all know how to make lemonade, even a 5 year-old kid sells a small glass of lemonade for a quarter in front of their house. This is no fancy recipe.

Preparation Time : 5 mins

Printable Recipe

Ingredients

8 cups water

4 cups sugar

1 cup of fresh squeezed lemon juice (about 4-6 lemons)

Ice

Procedure

1. In a pitcher, add ice and stir in water, sugar and lemon juice.