“Poor Knights of Windsor” is a dish of fried bread similar to the French “pain perdu”, or “lost” bread. Popular in England in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, it is a waste-not, want-not dish, its origins buried deep in good household management.
I have no idea why it is called Poor Knights but assume that the knights were poor and had to make do. Florence White, in her Good Things in England (1932), describes the ingredients as being stale bread, white wine and sugar, egg yolks, butter for frying, and some jam. She soaks the stale bread in the white wine and sugar, dips it in beaten egg yolks, fries the bread “to a fine brown” on both sides, and serves with a spoonful of jam on top.
Alan Davidson has a richer version in The Oxford Companion to Food, in which the bread was first fried in butter then the rest of the batter was poured over it and cooked, to be served with more butter, sugar and rosewater — the strawberry being a member of the rose family.
As part of my week of recipes to celebrate the British strawberry, I offer a version of French toast/Poor Knights, topped with fresh strawberries in their own scarlet, boozy strawberry pur?e instead of jam. You could also add raspberries, loganberries, blueberries, tayberries and blackberries.
FRENCH TOAST WITH STRAWBERRIES
Prep: 15 mins
Cook: 10 mins
Serves 4
1 day-old baguette
200ml milk
2 eggs
2 tbsp caster sugar
½ tsp vanilla extract
½ tsp cinnamon
500g fresh strawberries, hulled
2 tbsp caster sugar
2 tbsp berry liqueur or Cointreau 1 tbsp butter icing sugar for dusting
METHOD: Cut the baguette on a severe diagonal into eight 2cm-wide slices. Beat the milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla and cinnamon to a smooth batter. Cut 300g of the strawberries into quarters and set aside. Whiz remaining strawberries with caster sugar and liqueur until smooth, and combine with the strawberries, tossing well. To make the French toast, melt a little of the butter in a non-stick frying pan. Dip each slice of bread into the batter and place straight into the pan. Fry on both sides until golden, then drain and repeat with remaining bread. To serve, stack two slices on each warm plate, dust with icing sugar and spoon the strawberries over the top.
ORDER GOOD COOKING By Jill Dupleix (Quadrille) from Times Books First for £13.99 (RRP £18.99) plus p&p. Call 0870 1608080 or visit www.timesonline.co.uk/booksfirst