10 Chefs From 10 Countries Make Toast

[upbeat music]

You are about to see-

10 different chefs-

From 10 different countries

Make toast. Make toast.

Toast.

[upbeat music]

Today we are gonna be making

a recipe that is so close to so many people,

chili cheese toast.

You'll see this a lot in Indian five star hotels,

especially the 24-hour coffee shops.

We are using Indian style sandwich bread.

Look at the size of the slice, it's gigantic.

If I had a regular bread slice,

it would probably come right in the middle.

The first thing that we're gonna do

is toast these slices off.

I have an oven set to 350 to get that extra moisture off.

You don't want the bread to be limp,

you want that bread that's at the base

to be super nice and crisp.

I'm using softened Amul butter and Amul cheese.

It's processed cheese.

Most similar to this cheese would be Monterey Jack

in terms of the saltiness and the way it melts.

For any Indians who are watching this,

they know the nostalgic value

of this cheese and this butter.

This is the only cheese and butter that we grew up eating.

So our mixture is ready.

Our toast is also ready.

No color, just nice and crisp.

And that's what we want.

'Cause when this goes inside and it bakes,

it's gonna get even crispier.

The whole reason that we put the softened butter inside this

is so that you don't have to butter your toast first.

I have my bread set with the cheese mixture

and in she goes for about six to seven minutes

at 400 degrees.

For the last two minutes, you can just turn on the broiler

so the heat comes from the top,

it's almost like a salamander.

And just get cheese nice and brown and bubbly from the top.

So it's been a few minutes.

I put the broiler setting on for the last two minutes.

So when I do pull this out,

I do want to see like a really nice,

almost golden bubbly brown color on top.

I left the sides on before

because now it's time to trim it off

and to really make it look nice.

There's the reason why I use those really nice

big bread slices

because there's so much trimming that happens

that after the trimming it looks this size.

So can you imagine what it would look like

if I use regular sliced bread,

and the triangles would look so small.

It's cheesy, spicy, it's buttery, it's still crisp,

and one of my most favorite recipes in the world.

I'm making a Hong Kong style toast,

which is a very popular dish

in Cha Chaan Teng Hong Kong cafes.

In the 1950s Hong Kong food hall chefs

recreated this toast dish

that served in upscale western restaurants.

I'm showing you today a popular version with peanut butter.

This bread is a thick cut, white milky bread.

It kind of reminds us of the steamed buns that we have,

which is light and fluffy.

Fresh, the better.

First of all, I'm going to spread

peanut butter on the bread,

any kind of peanut butter,

and then I'm going to cut the crust.

Then we can dip this in our egg wash.

The white bread really soaks up,

but you have to be very careful don't break it.

Once it gets really soft, just gonna put it in.

You're gonna fry all sides to make them golden brown.

In the old days, this kind of style of toast

is fried in Wok,

but now in a lot of Hong Kong cafes,

people use fryers or just fry them in a pan.

The toast is fried,

and then we're going to add a little bit butter

and condensed the milk on it.

The egg is a little bit crispy

and then the bread is very soft.

And then peanut butter is so soft.

[jazz music]

Hmm, so good.

The different textures add richness to this toast dish.

We're getting ready to do a toast, right?

Not toast with any champagne, but I'm not judging.

The quintessential toast dish in America

is a bomb avocado toast.

Avocado toast is fat, and vegetable,

and spice, and love, and toastiness, and crunchy.

I'm getting ready to hook up a piece of toast

with a marble rye.

Flavor of rye is kind of easy, right?

It's not overpowering,

it's like a really super-duper obnoxious wheat bread.

This is a cast-iron griddle.

I wanna butter my griddle.

Well, I like to add the fat to the toast

because it also gives it another layer of flavor

and also gives it another new kind of texture.

I toast both sides for consistency.

That is the perfect toast right there.

Avocado toast doesn't have to be

just the regular old few slices with a piece of tomato.

I took the whole avocado

and smashed to the consistency that I like.

I took a little bit of key lime

so that it would soften it up.

Some herbs, my parsley and my cilantro.

I take some diced tomato, peppers,

a little bit of cucumber

and that's my secret weapon right there

'cause it gives it crunch.

And then the red onion, nice and fancy.

Get it like close to the edge,

close to your love handles, right,

that's what we were calling them.

And a couple more other components.

Beautiful heirloom tomatoes.

So you got the guacamole layer

and then you have your avocado slice layer.

Some feta cheese.

Now, I take some sun-dried tomatoes

and I take a little bit of hot sauce.

This right here is the truth.

[jazz music]

Oh yeah. It's toast and you should treat it like champagne.

Today we are making a french toast

that we call pain perdu means lost bread or old bread.

It's a way to save old piece of bread that you have

and put it in a custard and you have a dessert.

Today we are not gonna use a old bread,

we are gonna use a brioche.

We have eggs in it and a lot of butter

so it's more rich and soft.

So first you wanna soak your brioche in the custard

so it's made of milk, heavy cream, eggs yolk,

sugar, cinnamon, vanilla.

I'm gonna turn on my heat, add butter to the pan.

Brioche is very spongy,

so it is gonna suck out the mix very fast.

I like it more custard.

So I'm gonna leave it a little bit longer than the normal.

I'm gonna put it in a pan.

You can see the butter is hazel nut

and it does smell like hazel nut

and that's the color you want.

I'm gonna flip it one more time,

I want the custard to cook inside.

It's not gonna be too crispy because of the butter.

But you want the custard to create a nice light-brown color

and a little caramelized color.

And the inside will be soft.

This is a pain perdu with caramel sauce and whipped cream.

Let's have try.

It's almost like a bread pudding, soft.

Very good.

The brioche is perfect.

I'm making bruschetta.

Bruschetta is basically grill bread

served usually with tomatoes.

You eat bruschetta usually during summertime,

is like a great antipasto.

So like an appetizer to serve first.

What I prefer to use is actually a day old bread

so that it will be easier to cut it through.

We wanna make sure to have a bread also

that doesn't have too many holes.

You wanna put the stuff on it,

you don't want this stuff to fall off.

Bruschetta was basically born to be like in the outside,

meanwhile you know you are having a good time and aperitivo.

So grilling is always like the best way

to do the bruschetta.

So we wanna make sure that our grill is very, very hot.

We wanna put some extra virgin olive oil

on both sides of the bread.

And then we're just gonna put a little bit of salt as well.

The grilling is important

because it give so much of the flavor to this dish.

You want it to have those marks to give the flavor

in the same times you want it to be super hot

because you don't want it to dry too much.

You want it to have a little crust,

but inside should be moist.

This is ready.

We have some nice grill marks.

In Italy actually we don't eat garlic.

We want the flavor of it,

but we don't eat whole clove of garlics.

You wanna just rub it so then you can taste it.

Next, you're gonna cut some tomato.

Little trick, just put it between two, the lids

and you got your tomato in half.

We have some basil as well, some extra virgin olive oil,

a little bit meldon salt, and a little bit regular salt.

I'm gonna crush those tomato

because the important things about bruschetta

is wanted the bread to soak up the juice from the tomato.

So we wanna make sure these tomatoes are like

super flavorful.

We're gonna put all our tomatoes.

We are having a party here, so I'm just gonna cut in half

so then everybody can enjoy a little piece.

Here is our bruschetta.

I'm ready for summer. Enjoy.

Hmm. Reminds me to be just close to the beach

and having summer times with some bruschetta.

I am making a dish called kategna.

Kategna is essentially a Ethiopian toast.

We use injera, and injera is a flat spongy bread

made from a grain called teff.

We use injera for every meal,

for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and snacks.

That's how big injera is in Ethiopia.

The day we make injera at home,

after they finish making the injera

at the end they make kategna.

Let's start by mixing the clarified butter with berbere.

Berbere is an Ethiopian spice

consisting of 30 different spices.

Clarified butter is called kibbeh in Ethiopia.

That's the clarified butter cooked with some herbs called

koseret, cardamom, garlic strained with a cheesecloth.

You want your injera to be crispy

but not super, super, super dry.

I don't want to over drown the injera with butter,

just enough for the injera to get the flavor.

Because if you put too much,

it'll also be very hard to toast.

The kategna is ready.

Now I can't wait to take a bite of this.

[jazz music]

The right amount of crunchiness.

This is exactly how I like it.

It's time to make toast Skagen.

One of our culinary gurus in Sweden, Tore Wretman,

he was on his sailboat, he had little shrimp that they fish,

because of the cold water it has a sweetness and a firmness,

but it's not chewy.

The texture is more like a langoustine.

He peeled them and made a gorgeous shrimp salad.

This is a regular white toast.

I use this bread because it doesn't take over

the dish itself.

It doesn't overpower the flavor like a rye

or doesn't have any nuts or anything that gets crunchy.

It might seem plain,

but for a toast that is what you are looking for.

I take the regular toast bread

and I have soft butter

that are just very smoothly and evenly, and not too much

because if you take too much butter it will get soggy.

You want that crispy surface that gets golden

and without too much butter inside.

Then just put it in a medium hot pan.

Don't rush the toast.

Give it time and it will be superb

to get the nutty flavor of the butter,

which brings the toast flavor to a different level.

Look at this nice and golden crispy.

Now we do the same on the other side.

Toast is done, time to assemble it.

To make it even better, cut off the crust,

and even beautiful, a triangle.

So here we have beautiful peeled shrimp.

And for our toast Skagen,

we are going to roughly chop them up.

Have a little bit of chopped onion

and dill with some zest of the lemon,

and to add a little freshness

we add a little bit of the juice

and you mix it with the mayonnaise and the sour cream.

Shrimp salad here.

I usually leave a little bit of this

in case you want grab it by your hand.

But if you are sitting down at a table

and you have knife and fork,

you can just cover the whole thing.

Put a sprinkle of dill on top.

But today is a special day

so I'm going to top it off with a little bit of roe

which add color, a little bit of texture

and elevates this dish

into something even more sophisticated.

Here we go, the toast seems great

It's holding up, it's not falling apart on me.

And good to leave a little piece

so I can hold the toast while I'm trying it.

Mm, this is a really good toast.

So we are going to be making felfel

with toasted baguette

with some red and green pepper and tomato.

It just bring me back to where I grew up.

In Algeria, it's the biggest North African country.

During war the French lived in Algeria

and that's why the culinary came out as French-Algerian.

So for whoever doesn't know what a baguette is,

it's just a basic white bread.

Very sturdy, very crispy, especially after toasting it.

So, we gonna put some olive oil on the pan.

Well, I'm using a cast-iron

because I feel like the flavors still in it.

And it's also very important because right after this

we're gonna move forward with cooking the pepper

and the tomato altogether.

And I feel like it's just, it adds some more flavor.

You don't want it like too hard, you want it soft

because you just don't want to lose a teeth, you know.

So, that's how I like it actually, honestly.

That's good on for the toasting.

We have our felfel here, our toasted baguette.

I like to add a little oil into the baguette,

adding some harissa,

we are adding the felfel on top of the baguette.

We roast it in oven for about 40 minutes,

green, red pepper, tomato, and some garlic.

Adding some herbs into it.

And voila.

Hmm, this is really good.

I am making the toast dish called golden uni pan.

The pan is bread, golden is English, uni is a sea urchin.

So essentially it's a sea urchin open toast.

The bread I'm using today is called Chojuku.

This is a Japanese bread brand. Super soft.

This Chojuku is practically milk bread.

The milk contains in this bread

is makes this bread really softer.

When you toast it, the outside is gets very crunchy,

but then the inside is still very soft and fluffy.

And that's why I like this bread.

But I like to do it with a toaster

'cause it gives me consistency

and it's very easy to cook with.

We're looking for a golden brown medium consistency

of the toast.

The toast is toasted so let me take this out.

I like to take the crust off

'cause you know I work in the kitchen

and not lot of people knows about this,

but kitchen people need to eat too during the shift.

So by cutting off the crust

you have something to eat, just don't tell anyone. Thanks.

Starting with saikyo miso infused creme-fraiche.

It's a creme-fraiche mixed with Japanese miso

called saikyo miso, it's a white miso.

Anchovy butter smoked in pickled daikon radish.

Add some tomatoes, a little bit of scallion.

So this is hokkaido uni, uni mayo,

parmigiano-reggiano, shiso leaves.

All right, now we have golden Uni pan. Dig in.

[jazz music]

Oishii.

In Turkey we don't really have a dish

where you take a piece of toast

and put things on top and display it.

But bread has a very important role in Turkish culture.

Almost every household in Turkey

would get freshly baked bread daily.

Bread is found in all of our meals,

but today we're gonna talk about breakfast

because it's my favorite meal.

If you go to a Turkish household,

you would see a bunch of little things

put in ramekins on the table.

There are some savory stuff, some sweet stuff,

and even some fresh vegetables depending on the season.

I don't remember cutting my loaf of batard ever at home.

What we always did was to just break it

and then you would take a little piece like this

and put whatever you want on and and eat it.

Today I'm gonna make you a better looking version of it.

So I'm going to cut a slice of my sourdough.

I'm gonna make you a little bit of everything,

starting with my favorite honey and butter.

So in my family, we always had honey with honeycomb,

no mistakes here, kinda like Bob Ross, only happy incidents.

You can just put Feta, which is a Turkish favorite.

My absolute favorite, honey and butter,

the simplest thing in the world,

but sometimes, or most of the times,

simple things are the best things.

[Ali chuckling]

[jazz music]

I love this so much.

Better than all deserts.

[jazz music]

It's really good.

Hmm, fantastic.

[jazz music]

Hmm, this is so good.

Nice and rich.

[jazz music]