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May 29, 2009
Savory Bread Pudding recipe
I am a serious foodie and for me cooking and eating are two sides of the exact same coin. I absolutely love both, but not necessarily in equal measure. What I love is cooking a new dish in anticipation that it will be relished by whomever I serve it too. Other than that I'm middling about cooking. It's okay. I'm good at it and I like doing what I'm good at. So there is that aspect of it. But it's really the pleasure that will (hopefully) be savored by those who eat whatever it is that drives me and serves as my primary reward.
A cherished friend who knows that I collect cookbooks gave me a copy of The Tillamook Cheese Cookbook for my birthday last month. Right away I noticed a savory bread pudding recipe in it which instantly had my curiosity up. But I wasn't excited about the Southwestern flavoring scheme. So I hunted through and found one of the many "Mac & Cheese" recipes which had a flavoring scheme which I thought would be well suited to a savory bread pudding and sorta combined or drew inspiration from the two recipes.
Here's what I came up with:
(Complete recipe after the fold)
These quantities are mostly suggestions. Some of it I measured and some of it I didn't. I tend to cook that way and have tried my best to come up with measurements which reflect how much of which ingredient I actually used.
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons butter
2 cups chopped sweet onion
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1/2 teaspoons powdered sage (reserve 1/2 of it)
1/2 teaspoon black pepper (reserve 1/2 of it)
1 1/4 teaspoons sea salt (reserve 1 teaspoon)
7 large eggs
3 cups cream or half-and-half
2 1/2 cups cubed acorn or butternut squash (1/2 inch cubes)
1/2 cup chopped bacon (already cooked but not too crispy)
10-12 cups cubed day-ld French bread (largish cubes)
2 1/2 cups shredded sharp Cheddar cheese (reserve 1/2 cup)
2 cups shredded Mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
Preparation:
Preheat oven to 400 F. Butter large lasagna pan.
Melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and saute until soft. Stir in the garlic and cook for an additional 3 - 5 minutes. Stir in half of the powdered sage, half of the black pepper and 1/4 teaspoon of the sea salt. Set aside to cool.
Whisk the eggs and cream together in a large bowl. I cheated and used my mixing machine with the wire whisk attachment. Add the remaining powdered sage, black pepper and sea salt and whisk until thoroughly mixed.
Arrange the bread cubes in the lasagna pan until the bottom is covered and the pan is about 2/3 filled. Spread the onion, garlic and spice mixture, the chopped bacon (I wanted to use dried pancetta but couldn't find it last night), the cubed squash (I used acorn) and 2 cups of the shredded sharp Cheddar cheese over it. Roughly mix it all up. Give the whisked eggs and cream mixture one quick whisk to make sure the spices and salt are evenly dispersed and then pour that over the mixture in the lasagna pan. Mix it all up, making sure that all of the crusty bits of bread get some moisture. Spread it out evenly and sprinkle the shredded Parmesan cheese over the top. Over that evenly spread the shredded Mozzarella, and lastly sprinkle the remaining 1/2 cup of shredded sharp Cheddar cheese evenly over the top.
Cover it with foil and bake at 400F for 30 minutes. Remove the foil and bake an additional 15 minutes. Lower the temperature to 300F and bake for the remaining 15 minutes.
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This is REALLY tasty!! I was pleasantly surprised at how complimentary the flavors of the acorn squash and bacon are. My gut sense was that they'd at least go together but I sorely underestimated just how well. It's a match made in heaven, I swear!
Posted by Kevin at May 29, 2009 04:23 PM
