Neither French nor Toast; Discuss

So you see those words on the special board in your favorite diner. Intrigued, you order it and the waitress comes to your table with a plate full of a pile of golden-brown scraps of something and dried fruit and a pair of chopsticks. You dig in; it certainly tastes like French toast, but it doesn't look much like it. It's pretty good, though; you don't even need syrup or butter because it's already on there.

This recipe started as an attempt to create a breakfast strata (sort of a cross between French toast and frittata) in a frying pan and turned out to be something quite a bit more interesting and unusual: stir-fried French toast, a Western breakfast with a heavy Asian accent. I tried it with some slightly stale scala bread (similar to Italian); it would adapt well to any fairly dense, cohesive bread, such as baguette, Italian, or even bagels. Resist the temptation to use things like cinnamon swirl or raisin bread; they probably won't hold up too well.

The ingredients are to taste here. Work fast once the syrup has been added; while you might need a bit of heat to make sure it mixes into the bread properly you'll want to take it off the moment you're done so it doesn't burn. Also, if you're going to serve it with fruit, cook the fruit in a separate pan so the bread doesn't get soggy.

8-10 thick slices bread (Italian/French style or bagels will probably give the best results), sliced in 3/4" sticks
4-5 extra-large eggs, beaten
2 tbsp cornmeal (white or yellow)
milk
cinnamon
unsalted butter
maple syrup (please use the real thing for this)

Beat eggs with cinnamon and milk.
Pour egg mixture and cornmeal over bread in bowl and toss to coat bread.
Melt butter in a large wok or saute pan on medium-high heat.
Add coated bread to pan and stir-fry until cooked.
Finish by adding more butter, cinnamon, and maple syrup to taste. Remove from heat as soon as the other ingredients are incorporated.
Serve with garnishes as you feel appropriate.

Serving Suggestions: You will probably not need butter or syrup with this. When I came up with this I used raisins and sliced almonds as a garnish; nuts and dried fruit would seem to be a perfect accompaniment for this. If you're using fruit preserves (European-style) instead of syrup, you might want to consider thinning out whatever jam or marmalade you're using with water or wine and using it as a dipping sauce.

Special thanks to chefs like Thomas Keller and Masaharu Morimoto for making it safe to not only break the rules, but tear them up and throw them down the disposal...