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INSTRUCTOR: When you have a couple of slices
left of your bread, it's stale, and you're
tempted to discard it, put it in a blender or a food processor
to turn it into breadcrumb.
My absolute favorite recipe with breadcrumb is a pesto.
If you toast breadcrumb enough, it'll
have a little bit of a cheesy flavor to it.
You might not even notice that this is not
the traditional pesto, and that's
because the textures and flavors are really similar.
I'm going to show you four types of breadcrumb
to illustrate the fact that any of the breads we bake
in this class can be turned into crumb that
might find one use or another.
So we have one crumb here that's brioche.
It's very light.
It's very thin.
It's the type of crumb that you can use as a little
topping to give a little crunch to a recipe.
This is a pain de mie breadcrumb.
It lends itself to both sweet and savory uses.
This would be the wheat sourdough breadcrumb.
It's coarser, and you'll have a harder time going and bringing
it to a really thin crumb.
But bear with me, because this one is a great one
for a few other recipes.
And this is the rye that I'm going to put side
by side with the wheat.
It's darker.
It's more red-brown, whereas this one is golden, blonder.
Test them and try them, and figure out your food pairings.
If you are in need of breadcrumb and your bread is too fresh,
slice the loaves.
Dry it out a little bit in the oven so that it's hard--
[HEAVY TAPPING]
--versus--
[LIGHT TAPPING]
--and removing the crust.
Now, it'll be harder with the slices that you've toasted.
You can create these big chunks.
Break those into just coarse pieces,
and put them in your food processor or blender,
and pulse it until you have the desired consistency.
I remove the crust here because I
don't want to have the coarseness of the crust
as an additional flavor.
You can keep the crust.
But in that case, I would grind the crumb much thinner,
almost semolina texture, so that we
can diffuse the more well-baked parts of it.
Don't do it all in one go.
Pulse it on different speeds so that it can work easier
into a breadcrumb.
I start off with a really easy setting
so that I can get a sense of how easily the bread is
going to turn into breadcrumbs.
And I slowly work my way up.
There's no absolute here.
It's really by feel, just trying to stop it regularly
because it's really the start and stop that
creates momentum and breaks down the bigger pieces.
Once you've turned the breadcrumb into the desired
consistency, I like to have it in this grainy--
it's not especially regular, but it's small enough
that I can coat some fish sticks in it,
or I can use it as a little topping to texture,
say, some vegetables, or even some meat.
Another option is to flavor this breadcrumb.
Every bread has a different flavor to it, and adding spices
can boost certain flavor notes that we
have in the different breads.
So in this breadcrumb, I'm going to just add
a little bit of allspice here.
Say, a large pinch.
You really should not put too much salt
because I'm assuming your dish will be salted,
but just a pinch is OK to get some extra flavors.
Freshly-milled black pepper.
Now, you would use fresh herbs if, say,
you wanted to create a topping for one of your dishes.
Parsley or chives, whatever greens will add some flavors
and texture to your dish.
Plain breadcrumbs should be stored in a jar
or in a tin in a very dry environment.
And you can keep it for a couple of weeks, maybe no more than a
month.
If you've added some spices, same process.
But if you've added fresh herbs, then you
want to use it within one or two days.
Store it in an airtight container
and in the refrigerator so that herbs stay fresh.
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My absolute favorite recipe with breadcrumb is a pesto,
and it stems from finding out that breadcrumb
was used to replace Parmesan in Italy
when it came to be missing, too expensive, or just unavailable.
If you toast breadcrumb enough, it'll
have a little bit of a cheesy flavor to it.
And so in using breadcrumb, some greens, olive oil,
I created my own pesto.
I have the breadcrumb that replaces the Parmesan.
I have the walnuts that replace the pine nuts.
And then for the greens, instead of using basil--
because in continental Europe, I would find parsley
more easily--
I used parsley instead of basil.
A breadcrumb pesto tastes more or less
the same way as a regular pesto would.
You might not even notice that this is not
the traditional pesto, and that's
just because the textures and flavors are really similar.
I start off by removing the green leaves of parsley
and I put them in a bowl so that I can start
cutting them a little bit.
I found that it works slightly better.
Keep the stems to infuse in a broth.
I'm just going to cut it a little bit
and facilitate the work of the processor thereafter.
It just blends better.
And if it's coarse, that's fine.
Don't cut it with a knife because that
tends to squish the greens and make them fade faster.
So I've chopped up my herbs.
And using a food processor, I'm going to start off
with the breadcrumbs.
Those may be ones that you've stored already
or some that you made fresh.
I'm going to add the coarsely-cut green herbs.
I'm going to add walnuts, a pinch of salt,
and I would put two pinches of pepper,
because why not have more flavor here?
I'm going to just blend these ingredients together
for a second on a slow speed.
This is good.
It could be a little greener, so I can add a few more greens.
This is really discretionary, but I
like to have the pesto for pasta to be on the greener side.
Traditional pesto has basil in it,
and it's clearly the most authentic flavor.
Parsley has its own personality.
What I like about it is that it's consistent year round.
I've brought the ingredients together,
and now what I'm going to do is I'm just going to add some oil
so that you can really have that pesto texture.
As it comes together, you'll notice on the food processor
that it starts moving around in chunks,
and that's a good sign that we're
getting to the right texture.
Bread pesto really is an imperfect science.
So you can do it a thousand times,
and slowly figure out what are the proportions that you
like best, or the flavors that you want to reinforce the most.
I think it's just about ready to go on my pasta.
So here, what I have is a dark green color.
You can feel that the ingredients have come together
into one paste.
You cannot distinguish the breadcrumbs.
You don't know if it's breadcrumb, if it's nuts,
or if it's cheese.
And the nuts' flavors here and the greens
are just really wonderful.
They're fresh.
It's rich.
You can choose to have a more liquidy
pesto by adding olive oil.
If you want more green to it with less breadcrumb,
this is really discretionary and should also
be catered and chosen according to the dish you're
going to serve it with.
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I'm going to scoop up a few spoonfuls of the pesto.
Just check that I have the right texture.
And what I would tend to do is, especially if you're
greeting this dish with several people,
put it in the bottom of your bowl
and then mix in the pasta together,
because that will clad all of the pasta with the pesto.
If this is a last-minute dish, put your pasta in and cover up
your pastas with the pesto.
If you realize at this point that you
want a little more oiliness, feel
free to add in some olive oil.
That's absolutely fine.
You can even add some fresh herbs into it,
and that can be a final touch, especially if you're
greeting guests and serving it plated,
because it will give your guests the understanding that this
is parsley and not basil.
And it's ready to eat.
The pesto you've made-- if you're not going to use it all,
you can store it in a jar in the refrigerator
for three to five days.
You may be able to keep it a little longer, especially
if you use more oil.
But the freshness of the herbs is
what you want to keep, so eat it sooner than later.
So here we go.
I'm talking my mouth full, but this is really delicious.
What I really like with this pesto,
and especially with the parsley, is
that I feel it has a freshness that, year-round, is similar.
I think of pesto and I think over the summer.
But in the middle of winter, if I'm
looking for that touch of sun, then this pesto with parsley
gives me the shot I need.
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