Croustades
Cut crusts from a brick loaf of bread. Scoop out center of loaf, leaving walls an inch thick on all sides. Brush with melted butter, and brown in oven ; or, omit butter and fry in deep fat. Brush with white of egg slightly beaten, and fill with any creamed mixture. Set on a bed of parsley and garnish with toast points.
Small croustades may be made in the same way, by using thick slices of bread.
A bread case for creamed fillings, and essentially a technique rather than a fixed dish. Two details in the original do the real work: the inch-thick walls and the egg wash.
- The egg wash is the hingeThe egg wash -- The recipe has you brush the browned case with slightly beaten egg white before filling; the usual reason given for this is that the set white seals the crumb so a creamed filling is slower to soak through.
- "Brick loaf"A plain rectangular white loaf, unsliced. A standard 1 lb Pullman or pain de mie loaf is the closest modern equivalent; an airy artisan loaf with a coarse open crumb will not hold walls.
- Oven temperatureThe original says only "brown in oven." A modern oven at around 375-400F will do it in something like 12-18 minutes, turning once; go by the walls being dry and firm rather than merely coloured.
- Deep fryingIf you fry instead, 360-375F. Hold the case down with a spider or slotted spoon so it does not float and brown on one side only, and drain it inverted.
- Cut the walls generouslyAn inch sounds thick but it is right for a large loaf. Thinner walls tear when you scoop, and buckle once the hot filling goes in. Save the scooped crumb for fresh breadcrumbs.
- FillingsAny creamed mixture means a thick white sauce bound with cooked chicken, sweetbreads, mushrooms, oysters, lobster or a mix. It should mound on a spoon; a loose sauce defeats the egg wash.
- TimingFill at the last moment and serve at once. Cases can be dried out several hours ahead and re-crisped briefly in the oven, but a filled croustade will not wait.
- YieldOne large loaf makes a single centrepiece case; the original gives no number of servings. For individual cases the recipe says only to use thick slices, one per person as a first course.
Croustade belongs to the Romance family of words for crust (compare croûte), and the form covers anything from pastry shells to hollowed bread. Baked or fried bread cases appear widely in American and English cookbooks of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when entrées were expected to arrive in something. Its appeal to a period cook was frugality dressed as elegance -- a stale loaf, a pint of white sauce and whatever cold meat or shellfish was to hand became a dish worth a garnish of parsley and toast points. Cookbooks of this era often treat the croustade as a general method rather than a recipe, in the same family as the timbale case, the patty shell and the bread croûte. The type survives today mostly in miniature, as the cocktail toast cup.