Toast - and how to make a stove-top toaster

 

 

Toast is always popular at breakfast, but not everyone has a grill. You can make acceptable toast by simply heating a good-quality frying pan and toasting the bread on both sides, but it's not as good as that made with an open flame.  You can, however, make excellent toast on top of the cooker using a specially-made toaster. There are many so-called toasters fobbed up on the unwitting public by sadistic manufacturers. They’re apparently designed so that you can cook four slices at a time. In fact, they’re usually too small to take more than one piece of bread at a time and all they do to that, is to make it vaguely warm and slowly dry it out. In a word, they’re useless. The best way to toast a slice of bread quickly is to support it horizontally over the flame.

Camping toasters that work, do exist and are easy to buy in Oz and NZ. Unfortunately, the wire mesh is far too thin and soon burns out. 

 

Your best bet is to copy the style, but make it yourself. To make a toaster, what you need is some fine stainless steel mesh and some 3 mm (1/8 in) brass wire. Cut the mesh 175 mm (7 in) square. Make a wire framework about 150 mm (6 in) square, with a leg at each corner. The legs need to be about 40 mm (1½ in) high and are fabricated by bending the brass at right angles and then back along itself, thus creating a loop. Cut the corners of the mesh and wrap it over the framework you have just made, leaving a 10 mm (1/2 in) overlap, which you squeeze flat with pliers. Now take some more brass wire and thread it through the legs so that you create another 150 mm (6 in) frame. Cross it with two or three more lengths of wire. You may need to heat the brass to get it to bend and it’s probably easier to seize the cross wires on with some thin wire rather than trying to bend the brass wire. The result may not be particularly elegant, but never mind. A final refinement is to take another length of brass wire and form it into a handle.

To use the toaster, simply put it mesh side down over the flame and put your bread on the wire rack. It can also be used for poppadums, which will cook perfectly and very quickly this way and I also use mine for roasting aubergines, for Mock Caviare, and peppers (see recipes).

WHAT TO PUT ON TOAST FOR BREAKFAST

Well, there are heaps of things to choose from and they also vary from culture to culture. Sticking to the more usual spreads:

• Just butter

• Marmalade
• Jam/jelly/conserve/preserve
• Peanut/sunflower/nut butter or tahini
• Honey
• Marmite/Vegemite/yeast extract
• Hummus
• Lemon curd
• Dulce de leche (for those with a really sweet tooth) (see recipe)
• Mashed bananas

Or any of these in combination: for example I love peanut butter and Marmite; a friend enjoys tahini and honey; and USAnians apparently combine peanut butter and jelly.

Things like cream cheese are also appealing, but generally require either eating every day or refrigeration.

A really wonderful spread is Pic's Big Mix. I’m not sure if it’s available outside New Zealand (yet. His peanut butter, some of the best I have ever eaten, is now being exported to many countries).  So I have made up a recipe you can make yourself.  Pic's business, by the way, is one of the few B Corp outfits in New Zealand: another reason for buying his peanut butter.

Annie's Big Mix

 

A really wonderful spread is Pic's Big Mix. I’m not sure if it’s available outside New Zealand (yet. His peanut butter, some of the best I have ever eaten, is now being exported to many countries), so I’ve shamelessly copied the recipe (although I’ve substituted flax seeds for Chia seeds). This is substantial and delicious; I find it hard to resist simply scooping spoonfuls straight out of the jar! It is stretching the concept to call it a spread, I admit, because of the huge percentage of seeds it contains.

  ANNIE'S BIG MIX

2/3 cup peanut butter

2 tbsp pumpkin seeds, roasted

2 tbsp sunflower seeds, roasted

1 tbsp hemp seeds

1 tbsp sesame seed

1 tbsp flax seeds

salt to taste

• Roast the pumpkin and sunflower seeds in a frying pan, with no oil, until crisp.

• Add to a 250 ml jar with the other seeds and salt. Shake to mix

• Top up with peanut butter - or tahini.

• Mix well.