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Some of the world's very best dishes started out with a piece of stale bread. In this campaign to Save the Leftover Bread, I'll get to some of them (my mother's bread and butter pudding, tomato panzanella in the middle of summer, bread dumplings and chicken soup, to name a few). So, unless your baguette heel is actually this moldy, there are a lot of lovely things you can do with it. One of those (totally underestimated) things: breadcrumbs.
How to make breadcrumbs
Basically, if you are a person who bakes or buys bread, then you don't need to buy breadcrumbs at a shop. The ones that you buy ready are almost always too fine (and sort of tasteless) anyhow. Make sure your bread is dry (if it's not dry, you can wait another day or put it in the oven for a bit). If you have a food processor, drop the bread in there for a few seconds to pulverize it. If you don't have a food processor, grate the bread on a grater. If you don't have a grater, chop the bread up in little pieces, put it in a clean, dry kitchen towel, and thwack it against the wall until it yields to you (these crumbs will be full of larger pieces, which makes for a nice texture).
What to make with your new breadcrumbs
Given an excess of breadcrumbs, you might want to find other edible things to roll around in them (and why not?). Here's the classic way to make sure the crumb coating stays on your asparagus/hard-boiled egg/chicken breast/eggplant slice:
- roll edible thing in flour
- roll edible thing in beaten egg
- roll edible thing in crumbs
- proceed with frying or baking
Congratulations! You've saved some bread. Unfortunately, you probably have a lot of crumbs left and you're tired of rolling other foods around in them. Fair enough. Here's the real star of the breadcrumb department.....
Crispy Breadcrumbs
If you pan fry a cupful of your crumbs in butter (or olive oil), mix in any fresh herbs, salt, and pepper, you have a crunchy multipurpose topping to use for the next couple of days. You could sprinkle it liberally on a vegetable gratin or plain poached eggs but—don't be scared—one of the nicest things you could do is to put crispy crumbs on simple pasta dishes. Spaghetti dressed in pesto or tomato sauce and sprinkled with fried breadcrumbs is perfect and below is an even simpler recipe. It's ready in exactly the time it takes to cook the spaghetti (10 minutes?) and is especially good for when you're broke (or want to preserve the integrity of your crumbs). Keep in mind you could add a lot of things to this recipe if you feel like it (try cooked bacon cut up in little pieces, halved cherry tomatoes, an anchovy or two, or some wilted greens) though it's good just the way it is.
Spaghetti and crispy breadcrumbs
½ packet dry spaghetti
2 Tablespoons butter or olive oil
2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon chili flakes
3 Tablespoons your very own homemade breadcrumbs
Small bunch parsley,washed, dried, and finely chopped
Salt, to taste
1 little chunk Parmigiano (or other nice aged cheese), grated for garnish
- Boil a large pot of salted water for the spaghetti and drop the spaghetti in as soon as it's boiling.
- Heat the butter in a large pan until foaming and add the garlic and chili. As the garlic starts to soften (not color), add the crumbs.
- When your crumbs are golden and crispy, turn off the heat, add the parsley, and set aside.
- If your spaghetti isn't cooked yet it's probably because you were so quick slicing the garlic and frying the crumbs. Nice one. If this is the case, you could use your extra minute or two to watch this Bread video. If your spaghetti is cooked though, you should probably skip down to step 5.
- Drain spaghetti and toss in the pan with the breadcrumbs, a little extra virgin olive oil, and some grated cheese.
If you're interested in organic baking at home try our bread recipes.
For more smart ways to use leftovers:
Reusing Bacon Fat in Dog Biscuits
4 Reuses for Stale Bread
Soup of the Week: Bean and Swiss Chard
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