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Garnish, Fried Bread For
Cut the crumb of a stale loaf into slices, about a quarter of an inch in thickness. Stamp them out into pretty shapes with an ordinary pastry cutter, and fry them in hot butter, or lard, until lightly browned on both sides. Drain them from the fat, and put them round the dish they are intended to garnish. If they will not keep in their places, brush the under side with white of egg, mixed with a little flour. Time, two or three minutes to fry.
These are croûtes — the fried bread shapes that once edged every dish of ragoût, mince or salmi. The whole thing hinges on the bread being genuinely stale.
- The bread"The crumb of a stale loaf" means the interior of a close-textured white loaf with the crust cut away, a day or two old so it is dry and firm. Fresh bread and modern soft sandwich loaves collapse and drink fat; a firm white tin loaf or pain de mie left uncovered overnight is the right thing.
- ThicknessA quarter of an inch is about 6 mm. Any thicker and the centre stays soft while the outside colours; any thinner and the shapes snap when you lift them.
- ShapesCrescents, diamonds, hearts and rounds are among the shapes commonly named for fried-bread garnishes in period books; the recipe itself asks only for "pretty shapes" from an ordinary pastry cutter. Cut them all the same size so they sit evenly, and cut before frying — fried bread shatters under a cutter.
- The fatThe recipe allows butter or lard. Plain butter can colour and catch before the bread crisps, so clarified butter, or half butter and half a neutral oil, is easier to manage; have the fat hot enough that a corner of bread sizzles at once. Two to three minutes total, as the recipe's time allows, turning once.
- DrainingDrain on paper, not in a covered dish. Trapped steam softens croûtes within minutes, which is why they are fried at the last moment rather than held.
- The egg-white glueWhite of egg beaten with a little flour makes a stiff paste that holds the croûtes in place around the rim. It is not eaten in any quantity, but it is raw, so it is worth using pasteurised egg white if the dish will be served to anyone vulnerable.
- YieldA quarter-inch slice from a large loaf will give perhaps four to six cut shapes once the trimmings are allowed for — roughly enough to ring a single entrée dish. Reckon two or more slices for a large platter.
Fried bread garnishes belong to the ornamental service of later nineteenth-century English cookery books, when a made dish — a mince, a hash, a salmi, a fricassée — was thought unfinished unless it was fenced with something crisp. The practice also reflects a kitchen in which stale bread was never thrown away: crumbs for coating, panadas for forcemeat, sippets for soup, and croûtes for the rim of the dish. The word croûte is French for crust, and the same shapes, stamped and fried, still appear beneath game birds and around ragoûts in classical restaurant cooking.