Toffee Banana Matzo Brei
If you've got extra matzo and looking for a last Passover breakfast idea (but honestly, as someone who doesn't observe Passover, I'd eat this anytime), here you go! The first restaurant I worked at in NYC served this toffee banana sauce to go on top of waffles and I loved it- I also love just about anything with banana, including Clinton St Baking Co.’s banana walnut pancakes with maple butter so, this was kind of a mashup of all these things, in matzo brei form. You can see the process video here!
For the matzo brei:
4 sheets of matzo
3 large eggs
Equal volume of milk to the eggs (sorry, it's an eyeball sort of thing, imagine you're prepping french toast!)
Cinnamon (optional, but I used 1/2 tsp)
Pinch of salt
1 banana (1/2 for matzo brei, 1/2 for the sauce)
Butter for the pan/cooking
For the toffee banana sauce:
3/4 cup brown sugar (preferably dark, but I ran out and used light, and still turned out great)
6 TBS unsalted butter
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 TBS corn syrup
Rinse the matzo under cool water to dampen, and set aside. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs and milk. Break the matzo up into small bits into the egg and milk mixture and stir to fully coat the matzo pieces. Mix in the salt and cinnamon. Take 1/2 the banana and mash that up, and mix that into the matzo batter.
Heat a skillet with a pad of butter and scoop about 1/4 of the batter onto the skillet (this will make about 4 mini matzo brei, but you can make one large one, the little ones are just easier to flip and maintain their form), and press down to help the batter stick together (it’s not like a pancake batter, so, it’s likely that your mixture will break apart and not keep in a perfect shape. That’s ok! It’ll still taste as good). Flip after a couple minutes, and once the other side is golden brown (another couple minutes), remove and repeat the process.
In a small sauce pot, add the brown sugar, corn syrup and butter. Over a medium heat, allow to melt until the mixture starts to lightly bubble. Slowly stream in the cream while gently whisking. Once incorporated, let the mixture come to another bubble, to help thicken it up (but not too long, you don’t want the bottom to burn). Cut the heat off, slice up the rest of the banana, and put into the toffee sauce mixture, give it a stir, and serve.