French pain perdu with stale bread, milk, egg and butter
Pain perdu turns stale bread into a simple French pan-cooked dish rather than a casserole. The bread is cut into individual slices, soaked briefly in a milk-and-egg custard and browned in butter. The result should have a caramelized exterior and a tender centre that still feels like bread, not a wet pudding.
Bread condition matters. Eight stale slices, each about 2 cm thick and 40 g, are dry enough to absorb custard but sturdy enough to survive turning. The soak is intentionally short: two minutes is enough for this bread to take up flavour without collapsing. The custard stays chilled until cooking, and any mixture left after contact with raw egg and bread is discarded rather than saved.
The slices cook in two batches so the pan is not crowded and the 40 g butter can be divided evenly. Medium heat gives the surface time to brown while the egg-rich centre cooks to 71 °C. That temperature is the safety criterion; a golden outside does not prove the centre is fully cooked. Serve two slices per person straight from the pan. Fruit, ice cream or syrup can be offered separately, but they are not included in the base nutrition.
