Strata – The Other Bread Pudding

You know how after Shabbat your leftover challah just doesn’t seem to do it for you? Or like when we took our granddaughters Maayan and Tamar away (it was their turn this year) and Tamar didn’t want to eat her baguette which she took for lunch from the breakfast room? Well lemme tell you that sucker was dry and brittle and I was on the verge of tossing it and I stopped and thought of how my girlfriend Paulette used her leftover challah for bread pudding,

I just wasn’t in the mood for something sweet (and not with raisins cooked in it, gah!) so I decided to make a savory type of bread pudding, known as strata. This is basically soaking your old dried out bread (really almost any kind will do) in a custard like bath till it’s absorbed and then adding other ingredients to liven it up.

I will admit that this was a total experiment on my part since I’ve done french toast plenty of times but never bread pudding or strata. Hey, I figured it was worth a shot, ya know? So behold the (to my eye) dead as a doornail baguette

Just cut that sucker up into medium rounds for the baguette and if you have dried up challah or bread (the only kind I’m not certain would turn out properly is sourdough) in slices.

Next put it in a pan. Since I planned to turn it out on a plate, I used a disposable but you can use a pretty baking dish if you wish to serve from it.

I lined the long loaf pan with parchment paper to make removal easier. Then mix up the eggs and milk which is the custard base (although you don’t see the custard)

At this point, add the spices you want, I used paprika, salt, pepper, nutmeg and I added baco bits (mock bacon bits with a nice smokey flavor) and whipped with the egg/milk mixture. Then pour this over the bread. Just a word of warning. This amount may seem like a great deal of liquid proportionate to the bread. It’s not, trust me here. What happens is you are truly transforming the old, dried out (but not moldy old, natch) into a far far better creature that you simply won’t recognize as bread when you are done. When DH ate this, he literally didn’t know (except I told him so) that it was bread. The old and dried out bread becomes a sponge which sucks up all the liquid like a veritable vacuum cleaner.

The bread gets pushed down into the liquid and it rehydrates, changing into a soft mass. and covered it with a piece of aluminum foil and bunged it in the fridge to absorb the liquid. This went pretty quickly all things considered, I found after about half an hour that the liquid had absorbed nicely.

Then I topped it with a cup of grated cheese (muenster, Emek, cheddar, as you like). Put into a hot oven of 350 degrees for about 30 minute or until cheese is melted and bubbling and a toothpick comes out clean.

I cannot tell you how exciting it was to see the old bread I was all set to toss turn into this luscious, succulent dish that DH practically polished off in one sitting, I literally had to snatch it away to get another piece! Best compliment ever. And you never have to throw away your dried up bread again. 🙂

Strata – The Other Bread Pudding

One dried out baguette, or half a loaf of bread (you can double the recipe, use a whole loaf of bread and use 4 eggs and 4 cups of milk, etc.)
2 eggs
2 cups milk
Pinch pepper
Pinch salt
2 tablespoons bacos bits (optional but adds nice smokey flavor)
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon sweet paprika
1 cup shredded cheese

Directions:

Take your dried out bread and cut into slices or rounds, depending on its shape. Take a pan which will fit the bread nicely with extra depth for the milk and eggs to come. Line the pan with parchment paper. Put the bread in the pan in overlapping slices. It doesn’t have to look pretty since when done, you won’t see slices at all.

Beat the eggs and milk together and add the pepper, salt, nutmeg, paprika and bacos. Pour this mixture over the bread and gently push down the bread into the liquid. You will have fun seeing how fast the breads starts sucking up the liquid mixture. Now cover with foil and put in fridge about half an hour.

Turn the oven on to 350 degrees. Take your strata out of the fridge (let oven preheat for about 15 minutes, yes it really matters, wrong temp equals underbaked food) and take the cup of cheese and sprinkle on top. Place the strata uncovered in the hot oven for about 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean and cheese is bubbling. You can serve right from the pan or pick up out of the pan (carefully) with your parchment paper and serve in slices. It is a whole other food and so delicious, you probably won’t have a crumb left.