Emmental and tomato French toasts with green bean and shallot vinaigrette

Name: Emmental and tomato French toasts with green bean and shallot vinaigrette
Yield: Serve 4
Ingredients: little clarified butter (see PG TIPS) or olive oil; 30 g finely grated castelli vegetalia (parmesan-style cheese); 1 large free-range egg; salt, freshly ground black pepper and ground nutmeg; salt and freshly ground black pepper; 4 tablespoons reserved oil from sunblush tomatoes; 50 g unsalted butter, softened; 8 slices of thin white bread; 100 g sunblush tomatoes, drained, oil reserved; 200 g cooked French beans; 2 shallots, finely chopped; 1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped; 100 ml single cream; 2 tablespoons good-quality pesto sauce (bought or homemade - see PG TIPS); juice of ½ lemon; 6 black olives, stoned and finely chopped; ½ garlic clove, crushed; 150 g vegetarian emmental cheese, thinly sliced

Preparation info

Serve
4

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Pure Vegetarian

By Paul Gayler

Published 2006

About

A savoury French toast appetiser idea; the same principle could apply to many other delicious fillings on the same lines, such as goat’s cheese and olives. Always choose the best quality bread you can for these French toasts.

Ingredients

50 g unsalted butter, softened
8 slices of thin white bread
150

Starter
Vegetarian

Method

Spread the butter on both sides of each bread slice, top four of the slices with emmental cheese and layer over the pesto. Scatter some sunblush tomatoes over the pesto then close up the sandwiches with the remaining slices of buttered bread, pressing down firmly to make them compact. Cut out each sandwich into circles using a 1.5 cm diameter cutter.

In a shallow tray, whisk together th