I love it when experiments work out. This is another come-home-need-something-fast kind of meal where I also felt like cooking something real (although unclear what exactly real means), especially since it was CSA-pickup day (always exciting).
I ate this for dinner but I can also imagine it performing spectacularly on a brunch menu. The onions lend just enough sweetness to tie in the green beans and maple syrup, and the dill finishes melding everything together. I don’t even really like dill. But I don’t think this would work without it, and I very much enjoyed this dish. So.
Maple Dill French Toast with green beans and onions Green beans 1/2 an onion Salt 2-3 pieces of bread (depending on thickness) 2 eggs A splash of milk, or water Butter Fresh dill Maple syrup (must be real!)
Toast bread if it is cold/frozen. Beat together eggs and milk with a fork and place is a flat dish with sides (like a pie pan). Put the bread in (as long as it isn’t too hot) to soak up the egg, turning it over every now and again.
Meanwhile, chop up the onions: I like slicing them longways (along the longitude lines, if each onion was a planet) for this, because they hold together a little better (this is also what you want for grilling, if you have a grill). If you want them more caramelized, slice them the other way because they’ll break apart a little more. Pinch the ends of the beans and break/chop into a few pieces. Sauté them together on high, stirring often, for a few minutes until soft. Remove from pan and place on plate (if you have two pans you can do this and cook the French toast at the same time (what a concept!)).
Put some butter in the pan and make sure it is hot, then carefully place the soaked bread (they should have soaked up all, or at least almost all, of the egg by now) in the pan over medium-high heat (very thick toast should be cooked lower so the inside gets cooked before the outside gets burned). Cook until brown on one side, then flip over and brown on the other. When they are almost cooked, melt a little butter in the corner of the pan and added chopped dill, sautéing just enough to extract some flavors. Remove toast from pan, top with dill, veggies, and a little maple syrup (go easy on the syrup—you want it to add flavor, not too much sugar). I think you could add some syrup to the pan with the dill/butter to make more of an official sauce, but I didn’t feel like getting my pan all sticky so I didn’t bother.
Enjoy!
Dancing Tree Kitchen 