Savory Bread Pudding With Mushrooms, Leeks, and Canadian Bacon

This dish started with an inspiration from a restaurant here in Chicago that has since closed. Good thing I took good notes during the few times we had breakfast there! The versions they offered were leek, ham, and Gruyere, as well as one with tomato, bacon, and Cheddar. I think the combinations are really just up to your imagination and your tastes.

The base is just the same as any breakfast casserole or strata that I would make – stale or day-old bread cut into cubes, then soaked in a custard mixture. For these, I wanted to make individual servings in ramekins, so I cut the cubes of bread on the small side so that they would be easy to stuff into the dishes. The custard mixture is about one cup of milk (or half-and-half, if you are in a more celebratory than healthy mood) to three eggs. Depending on the amount of bread you have, you can increase or decrease the amount of custard mixture – just make enough to soak the bread completely. Season with salt and pepper as you would scrambled eggs.

I got a little carried away with ingredients, but I just couldn’t resist. I started with some leeks (one large or two small), rinsed them thoroughly (they have a considerable amount of grit since they grow in sandy soil), and cooked them in some olive oil until they began to soften (a little kosher salt helps this process along). I removed those from the pan and sauteed some sliced cremini mushrooms in butter in the same pan, adding a little salt again, along with some freshly ground black pepper and fresh thyme leaves (thyme and mushrooms is one of my favorite combinations). In addition, I had some Canadian bacon on hand that I really wanted to incorporate.

The best way to bring this all together is to cube your bread into a large mixing bowl, pour over the custard, and mix with your hands. That way, you’ll be able to tell if you made enough custard to soak the bread. You can always whip up a little more egg and milk to add to it, if it seems too dry. Then, mix in your vegetables and/or meat and/or cheese in the same manner (hands) to make sure you evenly distribute – just make sure you let anything you precook to cool a bit before adding it to the mix. I used shredded Gruyere here, along with some Fontina that I needed to use up – make sure you add a nice little handful to the top before you put the bread pudding into the oven for some added browned goodness.

If you bake in (buttered) ramekins, place them on a foil-lined baking sheet and bake at 350 until golden and bubbly (about 20-30 minutes, depending on your oven). If you bake in a (buttered) casserole (like a traditional breakfast strata), it will probably take a little longer; browned and bubbling is the goal.

Rapini

With the holidays behind us, I am repeating a time-honored tradition at the start of this year.  Having consumed the better portion of my own weight in cookies, chocolate, and heavy meals, I am ready to get back to a normal, heavy-on-the-vegetables, lean protein, whole grain diet.  Part of what I love about this time of year is the fact that I start to really crave greens and, in spite of the guilt I feel about leaving a big carbon footprint, I just can’t help myself at the grocery store produce section.

Because my need for green vegetables is so strong, I am extra-willing to try new things over and over until I find a way in which I like them.  I did this with collard greens long ago, and recently had the same kind of revival with brussels sprouts.  This time around, I am kickin’ it with some rapini, which is also called broccoli rabe.  Part of me has always been a bit wary of this vegetable, maybe because I have always been of the mind that there is no way you could improve on regular broccoli.  However, once you taste this green (which looks much like the love child of broccoli and mustard greens), you’ll see what a different flavor it has from anything else you’ve eaten.

A lovely friend of a friend, Michelle Maisto*, has written a marvelous book called The Gastronomy of Marriage, which is as much a love letter to food as it is to her husband.  Her literary (and culinary) treatment of rapini really resonates with me, describing how she “[craves] bitter greens like a thirst,” and sharing an anecdote about trying to get her husband to enjoy rapini, which he politely eats and dislikes (much like the Bun).  Maisto backs herself up with a tenet of Jeffrey Steingarten, food critic for Vogue, who claims that food aversions can be overcome with repeated consumption.  Though I find Steingarten’s TV personality abhorrent, I do find some of his food philosophy insightful.

I prepared rapini for the first time with very negotiable results; I was discouraged, but also challenged.  Foolishly, I treated the vegetable like broccoli and merely sauteed it in olive oil and garlic; the end product was bitter and unpleasant.  The step I missed was the par-boiling step, which makes all the difference.  Once blanched in some salted water, the rapini becomes gorgeously green (see photo), the color of green that you long for in the winter months.  As Ms. Maisto suggests, finish the blanched rapini with quick saute in some olive oil, garlic, red pepper flakes, and a squeeze of lemon.  This makes for the deepest, most verdant vegetable dish I’ve ever had.  Please give this one a try with some seared salmon or roast chicken; you may not fit it into your standard rep right away, but it’ll be a flavor so compelling that you’ll inevitably return to it again.

* Ms. Maisto also writes an exceptionally useful blog called The Market Report, which should be required reading for all New Yorkers.