Darjeeling Tea Pain Perdu with Condensed Milk Butter

Way back in 1978, my mother took my brother and me on an enormous adventure. We spent the summer months on a commune in Pune, India. Not to go too far into our family dynamics, but suffice it to say that my brother (5 yrs old) and I (8 yrs old) learned a lot about being independent while we explored our new world. We both developed a taste for mango ice cream, naan, and grilled corn but our days almost always began with thick sliced toast that I grilled for us on a Franklin stove located on the veranda and a mug of very strong tea (made from water boiled on that same stove), both of which we would generously lace with sweetened condensed milk. Thus fortified, we would head out to the Ashram to see what trouble we could avoid getting ourselves into. To this whenever I think of India, I can taste the slightly burned edges of toast and sweet, sticky condensed milk. I can feel the edge of a tin cup filled with sweet sweet fragrant milky tea. So I came up with this recipe. It mirrors the tastes and smells of those early mornings, just me and my brother getting ourselves ready to face the day's adventures. To read a bit more about our adventures, click here: http://waksingpoetic.com/2012/02/06/condensed-milk/