Condensed-milk and butter toast

Ingredientsserves 1

Method

1. Toast the bread until both faces are golden and the crust is crisp: in a toaster, the café way on a dry hot pan, or in the oven at 180°C for about ten minutes.
2. While it is hot, spread the butter so it melts into the bread.
3. For 奶油多, squeeze or spoon condensed milk over the top in a zigzag. A drizzle, not a pour; condensed milk is very sweet.
4. For 奶醬多, spread peanut butter over the butter (some houses use peanut butter in place of the butter), then the condensed milk.
5. For the closed version, sandwich the two slices with the condensed milk in the middle; cut on the diagonal and eat at once, dunked in a hot milk tea.
6. The ordering code: 奶 is condensed milk, 油 is butter, 醬 is peanut butter and 占 is jam. 奶油多, 奶醬多, 油占多 and 奶占多 are those four words in combination; 飛邊 means crusts off, and 烘底 means toasted before it comes out.
7. 脆脆 is the same slice fried in butter on both sides until it is crisp right through.

Take care

• Contains milk (butter, condensed milk) and wheat; 奶醬多 contains peanut.

The story

奶油多 is the 冰室's founding snack: bread from the 冰室's own bakery, tinned milk off the ship, butter from the cold room, and a milk tea to dunk it in. The naming code, 奶, 油, 醬, 占, is a shorthand invented by waiters writing orders on a scrap of paper, and it is one of the first things a Hong Kong child learns to decode.

Same counter

Hong Kong French toastPineapple bun with butterCafé scrambled eggs on toast

Lo Fo Tong is cultural food-heritage reference, not medical advice. If you are pregnant, unwell or on medication, talk to your doctor or registered practitioner before changing what is in the pot.