QUICK TREATMENTS: Days Old Bread
Fruit-based bread pudding from old bread
“I recently saved some shards of a sourdough rye bread I made and turned it into a Latvian rye bread pudding (a puree cooked with dried apricots, prunes, and sugar) using a recipe I saved from a recent issue of Saveur. If I don't have time to deal with old bread I throw it in the freezer until I do." (Mitchell Davis of The James Beard Foundation, New York City)
Crostinis, savory bread pudding, breadcrumbs from stale bread
When bread goes stale, I make:
- Crostinis: brushed with olive oil, sliced thinly, thrown in the oven.
- Savory bread pudding: another great way to ‘clean things up.’ I’ll take a quarter of a celery root, roasted and throw it in with the bread and milk.
- Breadcrumbs: I’ll rip bread apart or cube it and try to have it ready. I’ll turn oven off and leave bread in there overnight. Put it in food processor. And then dry again in the oven. Always have a big airtight glass jar. Depending on what I need them for, I keep them plain and add seasonings down the road.” (Bobbi Marstellar, recipe developer, Chicago)
As a thickener for tomato sauce
“I grew up in a bread bakery, and you could never predict demand on bread. My dad would make his own breadcrumbs, letting old bread air dry until it was hard as a rock. He’d then put the bread through a food processor or grate it by hand. (Today you can put hard bread in a towel and crush it with a rolling pin.) He’d use bread as a thickener in a tomato sauce. My wife makes a great meatball, putting in moistened slices of old bread, typically a baguette. She was an Italian mama in her past life. She can‘t cook for 5; only for 20, and she cooks fresh every day. (Chef Jacquy Pfeiffer, French Pastry School, Chicago)
Turkey stuffing from yesterday’s buns and chicken soup
“Once twice a month or every other month I’ll do a Turkey special: I’ll make stuffing. After my chicken soup has been cooking for a good half hour, I’ll wet down the bread with the chicken soup and add a variety of seasonings, seasoned salt, garlic and and vegetables, which I’ll have sautéed in pure virgin olive oil. It’s a little time consuming but I have 15-20 regulars who come in for just that.” (Danny Hechtman of Ken’s Diner, Skokie IL)
Bread & Tomato Soup from stale brea
“… in Tuscany, the Italians use bread as a soup thickener. There’s Pappa al Pomodoro (bread and tomato soup), where you soak old bread to soften it and then cook it in a tomato puree until it becomes a thick porridge.“ (Amy Sherman, recipe developer, San Francisco)
“When bread gets hard and stale I make savory bread puddings.” (Martha Rose Shulman, recipe developer, New York City)
Herbal breadcrumb mixture for meatloaf
“For meatloaf, I warm up a pan on very low heat, putting in olive oil, smashed whole garlic, woody herbs like rosemary and fresh oregano from our garden. I let the garlic steep in the warm oil for 20 minutes, and let the herbs kind of crisp up and let the garlic caramelize. Put breadcrumbs in that oil. I’ll let that cool down and put the whole thing in a food processor. I’ll use this homemade breadcrumb mixture in meatloaf, to bread chicken, fish, really anything.” (Dawn Viola, recipe developer, Central Florida)
“French” French Toast from hard bread
A French way to recycle hard bread is pain perdu – French toast that is served as a dessert. Slice a French baguette on the bias, dip into a mixture of milk and eggs, sugar, cinnamon and vanilla and then pan-fry in butter. Dust with powdered sugar and serve them with jam on the side. (Chef Jacquy Pfeiffer, French Pastry School, Chicago)
