"A Meal on Toast" - A Concept Dish

[Shalmanese]

Success with the microwave!

Although it is a rather tedious process, it can produce wonderful results.

First of all, You need to disable the roating plate on the microwave. I tried a couple of different ways from using tea-towels to dinner plates to cups but I found the best way for me is to simply invert your carousel.

Next, you need to find out where your microwave hotspots are. I did this through a process of fairly haphazard trial and error but, looking back, the easiest way would be to use all the little scraps left over from the making of the bubble toast to evenly layer the top of the carousel and then to turn on the microwave to high for... maybe 30 - 40 seconds. The spots that are hard and starting to brown are your hotspots and you can mark them with an unobtrusive mark to remember them.

Next, you need to place your bubble toast directly on dead centre of the hotspot. A tiny shift means lopsided toast. I only did one toastlet at a time but I don't suppose any more should be a problem. I ran a 1150W microwave on high for 35 seconds, flipping the toasts over quickly at the 20 second mark and I get just hardened, barely any browning bubble toast. I think if I were to want a browner version, I would finish them in the oven since the MW produces very inconsistant browning.

Another worry is that all the MW energy not going into the toast is going to damage the MW so I leave it off for 3 - 5 minutes for every toast I make. I've done about 14 now in an hour, with experiementation and I've gone through a bag of bread already.

After you make some of these, you wont need breadcrumbs for a good long while. The crusts, baked at 60 - 70C for a good hour or so, then crushed by hand and sieved make excellent bread crumbs.

[DaleJ]

Shalmanese: You are a true scientist and I am impressed with your tenacity. I'm going to keep trying. Thanks.

[andiesenji]

I just noticed this topic. I don't know how I missed it earlier.

Gee, you guys have re-invented melba toast.

I have a (circa 1925) melba toast cutter that sandwiches a (regular thickness) slice of bread between two metal plates that are perforated with points that stick into the bread but have a stopper so that they allow enough room for a thin-bladed knife to pass between them, slicing the regular slice into two equal thickness slices.

These very thin slizes are then rolled with a small, hand-held rolling pin something like a brayer, smooth, on one end and a docker, roller with pins on the other.

The rolled slice is rolled with the docker prior to baking so it WON'T puff up but remain flat, often being weighted with a second pan on top of the first to keep it from curling.

In the late 1930s melba toast was made commercially at a reasonable price and making it at home became a thing of the past.

[rooftop1000]

Shalmanese

how about a sprig of pine for the winter garnish...the pale green spring shoots are actually edible but i dont think anyone would bother

Tracey

[reesek]

shalmanese - how did it go??

[Shalmanese]

Not as well as I had hoped unfortunately. The toastlets became stale after only a single day in the pantry, I think it would be something to do with the high surface area and the high humidty we had that day. Maybe holding them in a 60C oven would work.

Even with rapid plating, by the time I got them on the table, some of the more liquid ones had already started to eat through the coating and were getting soggy.

In the end I did:

Pea & Mint Puree - Not very good this one, try as I might, although I got an intense colour, I couldn't get any discernable flavour from this.

Raspberry sauce - This was very intense, very sweet, guests loved it.

Mushroom cream - Reduced down the soaking liquid from some shitakkes and mixed it with some cream which had been used to simmer sauted button stems, was a hit, the cream was very intensely mushroomy.

Onion Confit - I ended up ditching the mashed potatos at the last minute given how long serving was taking, I was using a smaller syringe this time and the onion refused to go through so I just piled it on top. Not a bad decision as it did provide a bit of contrast to the other dishes.

[hathor]

Best laid plans of mice and men....

Nothing ventured. Nothing gained. etc. etc.

Still sounds pretty good to me!