Chorizo French Toast - Modernist Cuisine

Chorizo French Toast

Recipe • May 11, 2012

The team looked at each recipe in a number of different ways to see if the layout solved any potential complications both editorially and visually. Was the recipe procedure difficult to follow? Would visuals of textures or close-ups help show what the recipe should look like? Would adding an explanation be okay or did we need photographs to make a culinary point? Wherever we felt there was a need to explain more of the procedure or show a texture, we did that in an expanded format. In preparation, I would read each recipe thoroughly and flag the ones I thought needed more visual explanation. It’s important to show textures and techniques so that the readers know if they are doing something correctly.Though this is a short recipe, it is a fairly complicated one. There is a lot going on, especially when you pull the vacuum and the brioche absorbs the custard. So it ended up as a two-page spread in the Gels chapter of volume 4.

Mark Clemens, Art Director, Modernist Cuisine

Recipe

Chorizo French Toast
Chorizo French Toast with Quail Egg Quail eggs are perfect for this recipe because they are small enough to fit on the brioche rounds with room to spare.

Tips and Substitutions

  • French toast is good when made with many savory flavors, such as aged cheese, foie gras, sweet peas, corn -- even savory nut milks. To make a foie gras version of this recipe, simply blend 400 g of milk with 200 g of raw foie gras, and use this mixture instead of the chorizo-infused milk. We also had great success with a blend of 300 g of milk and 300 g of our toasted almond milk (see page 4·59 for toasted almond milk).
  • This vacuum-infusion technique also works well with sweet custard to make a sweet French toast, or pain perdu.
  • Looking for a chamber vacuum sealer? We recommend the VacMaster VP210C Dry Piston Pump Chamber Machine.
  • The chamber vacuum sealer allows the brioche to quickly and completely absorb the chorizo milk. If you don't have a chamber vacuum sealer, you can soak the brioche overnight in the chorizo milk. It will not, however, be quite so fully absorbed as when using a chamber vacuum sealer.
  • Steps 8 and 9 can be reversed.
  • For Nathan's two-step approach to frying eggs, see page 4·85.
  • You can often find quail eggs at specialty food or ethnic grocery stores, or farmers' markets.
  • Save your quail shells. We like to serve a trompe l'oeil in them. We use spherification to make a passion fruit egg yolk and white, and serve it in a quail eggshell.
  • We often serve this with a quenelle scoop of our olive marmalade.
  • To make olive marmalade, sautée 30 g of finely minced fennel over low heat until tender (about 12 minutes), then let it cool completely. Gently fold into the fennel 30 g olive oil, 10 g minced shallots, 30 g minced picholine olives, 15 g minced candied orange rind, and 10 g minced Niçoise olives. Season with 0.1 g fresh thyme leaves and salt (to taste).
  • Our favorite garnish for this dish is thyme, but there are many possibilities.
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