Cuisine innovation - Pink french toast

Readers – Those of you, who know me, know very well that I try to do my part for cuisine innovation or Cuisovation™. It’s an act of creativity – genius. It’s an act of generosity – selflessness. There can be no patents or royalties – yet there is joy in creating goodness for everyone to enjoy – joy in taking our shared culture to the next level.

This morning as I woke up on the second day of Eid, I was inspired to cook some French toast, or “Shahi Tukra” as the old school people around here might call it (literally translating to “Royal piece”). Shahi Tukra was once enjoyed exclusively by royalty in the Mughal court – a rich bread pudding loaded with cardamom, saffron and rose water. French toast on the other hand is loaded with sugar and sometimes cinnamon, and consumed by lowly plebs, such as yours truly, as well as the aristocracy.

I had sugar, but none of the other “exotic’ ingredients. Glance around the kitchen – “Rooh Afza” to the rescue. Rooh Afza is a bright red colored highly viscous sugary substance, loaded with rose water, herbs and other sweet flowery goodness. It is usually diluted ten parts to one with water or milk, and served as a refreshing sugary drink. It is especially popular during Ramadan as a quick sugar fix past sunset.

What’s great about Rooh Afza is that it turns anything it is added to Pink, thanks to what the ingredients list as “Permitted red food color”. I doubt that Pink French Toast has ever been made before.

The line-up was simple – Bread, an egg, sugar, milk and of course – Rooh Afza.

Bread dipped into the Rooh Afza enriched “batter” turned to a nice light pink colour. Perfect.

Retained some of its pinkness and it was cooking and even once removed from the frying pan.

And it was delicious. I could taste some of the rose water and exotic flowery idiosyncrasies, and did not miss any of the other exotic ingredients (cinnamon, cardamom, etc.).

Just a little contribution to the pink packaging and marketing revolution. And making the world a better place - Cuisovation™ in action.