One of the nicest smells in the world—in my humble opinion—is the scent of bread baking. It’s nice in all seasons, but especially in colder months. To walk into a bakery on a frigid snowy day, pushing open the door and stepping into the warm, yeasty-smelling air, is an extremely pleasurable moment. Other baking smells are enticing too, of course: cinnamon mingled with sugar or chocolate chip cookies right out of the oven or the steam rising when you slice into a loaf of freshly baked banana bread or the spicy kick of ginger and cloves in a square of moist gingerbread cake.
But bread is my favorite of all. The other weekend, I made a batch of basic white sandwich bread. The recipe makes two loaves, and I tweaked my go-to recipe to make it vegan with almond milk and oil to such great success that I couldn’t even tell the difference. Unlike months ago when I’d be focusing all my attention on the task at hand, I was mixing the dough and listening to an audiobook and singing BAAAAARGES I WOULD LIKE TO GO WITH YOU to the baby (50 points if you can name that song, 100 points if you can hum the tune) and loading the dishwasher and texting absurd Halloween costume ideas to my sister and jotting down reminders to get the furnace serviced and buy more olive oil and, well, here’s what happened.
I FORGOT THE G-D SALT. In case you’ve not ever baked bread, a fundamental truth is that bread without salt does not taste good. (Sidebar: there is a style of Tuscan bread [pane toscano] that is made without salt, intentionally so. The theory is that it’s a holdover from the Middle Ages when salt was expensive, but whatever the reason, it’s still baked this way and used heavily in cooking to balance out saltier dishes. So, there’s that. Not to throw shade on the Tuscans but really, it doesn’t taste good on its own.)
Salt-free bread tastes flat and bland. It tastes….like nothing, to be honest, and not in a good or neutral way. In a something is missing way.
And no, you can’t just sprinkle salt on a slice after it’s baked. (I mean, you can, but it won’t solve the problem.)
Rather than being a disaster, this is merely another opportunity for reinvention. For exercising my brain (the NYT Spelling Bee and approximately 2 and 1/2 clues of the Sunday crossword don’t count).
I slice the bread thickly and pile it on a baking sheet. I turn the oven on to 350 degrees and bake the slices until toasty and very pale golden brown in color. (You could drizzle them with olive oil and sprinkle them with salt before toasting, but I prefer to do that later.)
I take them from the oven and let them cool before blitzing them in batches into irregularly-sized breadcrumbs in my teensy tiny Cuisinart. I like to leave some in bigger chunks, like croutons, and some as fine as sand.
I store the crumbs in a glass mason jar—whenever I make salads (or some dinners, see below), I pour a cup or so into a large skillet with some olive oil and a pinch of salt and saute them until light brown and fragrant.
Sometimes I add a little miso, or a dollop of mustard and a drizzle of maple syrup, depending on the ingredients in the dish to which I’ll be adding them.
I honestly can’t think of many savory foods that wouldn’t be improved by a fistful of buttery toasted breadcrumbs, can you?
Soupy, stew-like dishes in particular benefit from this addition. In the winter, I like to cook braised, soft foods that are spoonable over rice or polenta or couscous. I often just cook down lots of chopped vegetables with some broth and spices and call that the main event. Add toasted breadcrumbs to soak up the liquid—it’s better than croutons because the breadcrumbs get all soft and pasta-esque. Am I explaining this right? Just try it.
One such recipe that I highly urge you to try is the following, inspired loosely by Molly Wizenberg, author of some extremely excellent memoirs and co-host of the Spilled Milk podcast. On one recent episode, she was talking about how her 8-year-old bizarrely loves this homely, vegetable-focused dish so much that she requests it for her birthday meal every year.
SOLD.
She adapted her version from a Molly Stevens recipe which calls for escarole and cannellini beans, swapping chickpeas for the beans. You, of course, may use any light-colored bean you like. You may also swap in a different green: kale, perhaps, or bok choy or chicory or endive or mustard greens or any combination thereof.
I’ve used both chicken stock, vegetable broth, and Better than Bouillon cubes. I suspect a splash of white wine would not be out of order, particularly if your broth or stock is not of the highest-quality (read: store-bought).
The obvious insinuation here is that however you make it, you should top this dish with breadcrumbs. You could also spoon it over thick slices of sourdough toast, or serve it with some sort of cooked grain, or maybe even top it with a fried egg if you’re feeling hungry?
Whichever way you go about it, it’s a very nice option for a cheap and quick and simple cold-weather meal.
Garlicky Braised Escarole + Chickpeas
2 cans (15 ounces each) chickpeas
1 large head escarole
1/4 cup (60ml) olive oil
pinch of red pepper flakes
3 garlic cloves, very thinly sliced
1 cup stock (vegetable or chicken)
salt, to taste
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
Drain the chickpeas and rinse them well. Wash the escarole very well (this usually takes a few rinses) and chop it roughly.
Add the olive oil to a large skillet set over medium-high heat and cook for about a minute.
Add the red pepper flakes and garlic and cook for about 30 seconds, then add the chickpeas and escarole.
Cook, stirring occasionally, for a minute or two, then add the stock and season with a pinch of salt.
Cover the skillet and reduce the heat to medium-low and cook for about 15 minutes, checking occasionally to make sure that there’s enough liquid. Add a bit more stock (or water) if it’s starting to look at all dry.
Once the greens are very wilted and the chickpeas can be easily mashed with the back of a spoon, remove from the heat. Stir in the vinegar and taste, adjusting for more salt if needed.
Serve with buttery toasted breadcrumbs or over toast. Or rice! Or whatever! Eat it alone! Feast! It’s also pretty good the next day.