Tuesday 16th October 2012 | INDIGO
6 food & drink
Beyond your daily bread Find yourself cooking the same recipes day in, day out? indigo gives you some innovative twists on an everyday staple - bread
B
read, from time immemorial, has been the staple stuff of the western diet; an economic marker, the food of thousands and the bane of bikini diets. It’s also a constituent element of almost every student shopping basket. From toast to, well, beans on toast, the humble loaf is a post-lecture hunger saviour. Yet the versatility of this starch is too often undermined; today’s sorry looking crust is tomorrow’s supper. Look to the French, whose pain perdu, is a classic example of leftovers turned good. Just soak a couple of slices in beaten egg and fry gently in butter until golden, then drench in sugar and cinnamon. Or do as the Spanish do, and use it as a vehicle for tapas; try the classic pan con tomate, and add a couple of slices of chorizo or ham to bulk it up. Or smear with chickpeas mashed with olive oil and garlic, then drizzle
with lemon and sprinkle with paprika. These, and the ideas below, might be simple but they’re anything but stale…
Panzanella An autumnal twist on an Italian classic. Chop 300g of fresh tomatoes (the plum variety have great flavour) and half a small cucumber, finely dice half a red onion and tear your leftover bread into large chunks. To make this salad more autumnal, lightly toast the bread to warm you could even swap the raw tomato and cucumber for roasted tomato and courgette. Toss all the ingredients lightly, and season well. Whisk together olive oil, red wine vinegar, capers (if you have them), a pinch of sugar and some extra salt and pepper. Pour over the salad and leave the flavours to absorb. If you fancy, scatter over leftover roast chicken or shavings of cheese to make it more substantial.
Migas Migas means ‘crumbs’ in Spanish. Place your finely sliced bread in a bowl. Season and sprinkle with a little water, then leave to stand. Heat some oil in a pan and add a clove of finely chopped garlic and a bit of paprika if you want some extra heat. Add chopped red pepper and sliced chorizo, then remove once browned. Add the bread to the frying pan and cook in the fragrant oil. Add bread to pepper and chorizo mixture, and lightly toss. Tuscan bread and tomato soup The Italians often use bread as a thickener in soups. Heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a pan and cook a chopped onion and 3 cloves of chopped garlic until softened. Add a couple of tins of chopped tomatoes and another tin full of water. Bring to the boil and season well. Reduce the heat and leave to
simmer, covered, for 15 minutes or so, until the soup has thickened. Add the torn up bread and stir into the soup. To finish, a bit of basil wouldn’t go amiss, nor would an extra drizzle of olive oil. Apple Bread Pie Bread doesn’t have to be savoury. Peel and chop 2 medium sized bramley apples, cook on a low heat in a saucepan with 1 tablespoon of water and 2 tablespoons sugar until the apple has reduced to a puree. Remove from heat. Take 3 slices of white bread (crusts removed), melt 1 ½ tablespoons of butter and brush both sides of the bread slices. Line a small pie dish or ramekin with the buttery bread, leaving some bread aside to cover the top as a lid. Fill the rest of the dish with cooked apple. Use the remaining bread to cover the top. Sprinkle with a little sugar, bake in the oven at 200oC for 15 minutes until
golden brown.
Piña Colada Pudding Or how to get rid of Malibu. In a bowl, whisk together 1 egg, 2 tablespoons of milk, 2 tablespoons of coconut milk and 1 full measure of white rum. Remove the crusts of 2 slices of white bread and soak the slices in the mixture for 5 minutes. Melt ½ tablespoon of butter with 1 tablespoon of brown sugar. Line the bottom of an ovenproof-dish with tinned pineapple rings. Cover the pineapple with the butter/sugar syrup. Take the soaked bread slices and cover the pineapple. Sprinkle liberally with sugar and bake in the oven at 200oC for 20 minutes until light-brown and crispy on top. If you’re feeling particularly adventurous, follow the same recipe, but before serving invert the dish onto the plate so the pineapple is facing upwards to create an upside-down cake effect.