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Bread Omelet

Recipe picture

  • Serves: 4
  • Time: 15 minutes
  • Date added: 2024-03-21

Description

Preeti describes their mother as one who leaned more “traditionalist” with the meals she dished out, she was an ingenious cook who sometimes took to incorporating familiar Indian spices and ingredients into Western favorites to create mash-up dishes that appealed to her children’s tastes. One dish in particular that sticks out was affectionately referred to as the “bread omelet.” Sliced white bread was soaked in an egg-and-milk mixture laced with cumin and masala, along with chopped onions, cilantro, ginger, and a bit of Serrano chili. The spiced, eggy bread was then fried with butter in a skillet until golden brown, and served with ketchup. It’s a riff off the Bombay omelet, a dish commonly enjoyed in Mumbai, but Preeti’s mother had the idea of using those same flavors in a creative spin on savory French toast. Preeti remembers it as a family favorite enjoyed on weekend mornings.

“She was looking for something that we would eat while also putting her imprint on it,” Preeti explains. “I think my mom was thinking, ‘Oh, I’ll turn [Bombay omelet] into French toast for them. But at the time she didn’t know the word for ‘French toast,’ so she called it ‘bread omelet.’ I mean, now she knows it’s French toast—but, you know, this was in the eighties.”

Now, as a culinary professional, Preeti proudly creates and shares recipes that champion the flavors they grew up with—from tikka masala macaroni and cheese to curry leaf ginger Brussels sprouts. Their Indian heritage and American upbringing formed the foundation of their restaurants, the late Juhu Beach Club and Navi Kitchen. Bread omelet still makes an appearance in their meal rotation, of course, albeit slightly dressed up now that they’re an adult.

“I’ve made it with fancier bread and it’s great,” Preeti says. “There’s a really cool guy, Azikiwee, who owns Rize Up Bakery. He and an Indian food writer I know here in the Bay, Leena [Trivedi-Grenier], created a masala sourdough loaf that has stuff like turmeric and curry leaves folded in. He sent it to me and I was, like, ‘I think we should make bread omelet with it.’ It already has all the components, so why not just keep going?”

Ingredients

  • .5 cup finely diced yellow onion
  • 1 tablespoon minced ginger
  • 1 tablespoon minced Serrano chili
  • 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
  • 1 tablespoon kosher salt
  • .5 cup roughly chopped cilantro, plus more for garnish
  • 6 large eggs
  • .25 cup milk
  • 8 slices bread (see note)
  • 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • Ketchup, to taste

Directions

  1. Combine the onion, ginger, chili, cumin seeds, salt, cilantro, eggs, and milk in a wide, but deep dish. Whisk until all the ingredients become a homogenous mixture.
  2. Soak bread slices in the egg mixture until they are fully soaked through.
  3. Heat a non-stick skillet or griddle over medium heat.
  4. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in the skillet, and fry the bread slices until golden brown, about 2 minutes on each side. Repeat with the remaining slices of bread, using 1 tablespoon of butter at a time in between batches.
  5. Serve immediately with ketchup and garnish with some more chopped cilantro.

Source

That one dish

Comments

  • 2024-03-21: really tasty, replaced the serrano with 1 tsp chili powder