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Fried Bread to Serve with Soup
341. Cut slices of stale bread nearly half an inch in thickness, and again into squares or diamonds, or with a cutter into shapes, put a slice of butter into the frying-pan, and when melted put in the bread. Turn it constantly while frying till it is all of a nice light brown. Drain the butter from it, and dry it on a cloth before the fire, or on paper in a sieve. It will take nearly an ounce of butter to fry a quarter of a pound of bread.
Croutons, made in butter in a pan rather than baked. The recipe is sound as written; the only real skill is keeping the heat low enough that the butter browns the bread rather than burning around it.
- Butter quantityAn ounce of butter to a quarter pound of bread is about 2 tablespoons to 4 oz (roughly four thick slices). That is a lean amount for a frying pan, so work in a small pan or in batches, and add a fresh knob as the bread drinks it up.
- Heat controlButter alone will brown and then blacken at around 300F. Keep the pan at medium-low and move the cubes constantly, as directed, or use clarified butter, which tolerates a good deal more heat without the milk solids catching.
- Stale bread mattersFresh bread is too damp; it soaks up fat and steams instead of crisping. Day-old or two-day-old bread with a close crumb gives the crisp cube the recipe is after. A firm white tin loaf is closer to the Victorian original than a modern open-crumb sourdough.
- Drying"Before the fire" means a warm, dry, airy spot. A low oven at 250F for a few minutes on a rack, or simply draining on paper in a sieve, does the same job and keeps the crispness.
- Yield and servingA quarter pound of bread will make roughly enough croutons for four to six bowls of soup, though the recipe gives no serving count. Add them at the table, not in the tureen, or they soften before the soup reaches anyone.
- KeepingButter-fried croutons go rancid faster than oil-fried or plain baked ones. Make them the same day; if you must keep them, an airtight tin for a day at most.
Fried bread garnishes are one of the oldest ways of using up a stale loaf, and by the middle of the nineteenth century they were common in English kitchens: many soups of the period were thin, strained and unthickened, and a handful of crisp bread supplied both body and something to bite on. The fussiness about squares, diamonds and cutter shapes reflects a Victorian taste for garnishes that look deliberate. The French term croûton was in circulation in English cookery writing by this date, but had not displaced the plain description used here.