In which I buy bread

[desperance]

Is it feeble of me to duck it, or would it have been ridiculous to bake bread simply to make breadcrumbs...?

I have, as it were, an emergency dinner party tonight. Right now, mid-afternoon, bread is rising (for bread, you understand); stew is stewing (for stew); vegetables are roasting (for soup); potatoes are boiling (for mash). Apples are waiting to be peeled (for apple cake). The vacuum is waiting to be pushed around a bit (for cleanliness, showing willing, gestures towards). The table is waiting to be cleared (for eating thereoff).

But I wanted to make an olive crust for the stew (beef in sherry, since you ask: with carrots, onions, fennel, mushrooms, herbs & stock, but mostly beef in sherry), and I had no bread. So I was planning to bake a second loaf. Only it would actually have been a third loaf, as I was planning to bake ciabatta as well as granary, give the little darlings a choice; and - well, I ducked it. I bought a bread for the breadcrumbs for the crust.

And am quite remarkably discontented with myself. I shall be apologising for it all night now.

Comments

Re: bread crumbs

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Heh. I never got that Conran line; even at the time, seemed to me to be flying in the face of nature. There is always time to stuff another mushroom.

And I seldom use shortcuts, and I am still working on my pastry. (It's my sore point, my weak point; I can do okay pastry in a machine, but that is blatantly cheating. Rubbing it in by hand? Not so much. Must practise more, but that's hard when you know you don't do it well...)

Re: bread crumbs

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

I've seen it suggested that the fat be chilled, in fact frozen, and then grated into the flour, take make sure it's already pretty fine once it's soft enough to mix in.

I'm sure the boys would be interested in grated fat.

Re: bread crumbs

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Oh, God. Can you imagine...? *imagines, all too clearly*

(The little Barry-beast got both raw and sizzled bacon for lunch today: the raw because I dropped a bit - does everybody else drop stuff, all the time, for ever? or do I have a disease, is it dropsy? - and was just too slow to prevent him; the sizzled because I was too confident that he wouldn't really snatch it right off my plate, not my Bazza, no...)

However, if we could abide the boys' desires - yup, I think I might try this. Thank you!

Re: bread crumbs

[gauroth.livejournal.com]

No, no, no! doing pastry in a machine isn't cheating! My mamma always used to make hers in her Kenwood Mixer: it was always especially short when she forgot about it and left the machine running too long, so it amalgamated without any need for water.

She always used a third each of butter, hard marge and lard. Angels aspire to her expertise with pastry.

Grated Cheddar included when making a end-of-the-month butter bean and root veg pie is another Good Thing. That was always a treat: I didn't realise it was extra-cheap food for years and years.

Re: bread crumbs

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Angels aspire to her expertise with pastry.

My mother's also: but Mum always did it by hand, that clever rubbing-in thing, with a casual toss of the fingers and lo! 'Twas done; which is no doubt where I get my perverted sense of What Is Right in pastry-making.

She has handed the torch on to my sister, alas, but not to me...