Recipe Note: Savory Bread Pudding

Most people think sweet when they hear bread pudding, but for many of us who are missing the sweet tooth, bread pudding can also be satisfyingly savory too. While in Brussels, we were lucky enough to have two wonderful Thanksgiving hosts from the UK; Thanks Al and Frances! While they weren't thankful like we are in the US for the introduction of western disease to North America and the stealing of native lands, they were thankful for my savory bread pudding. I read recipes by Ina Garten and Mark Bittman to come up with mine. By request, here is the recipe.

Ingredients

• 6 Cups of Bread cut into 1/2 Cubes
• 1/2 Cup of Pancetta
• 2 Cups of your favorite Mixed Mushrooms (I used black trumpets, porcini, white/brown caps)
• 1 Diced Onion
• 1 Diced Shallot
• 3 Cloves of Minced Garlic
• 2 Cups of Whole Milk
• 4 Eggs
• 1 and 1/2 Cup of your favorite Cheese (I used a local aged sheep's milk)
• 1 Tablespoon of Unsalted Butter
• 1/4 Cup Chopped Parsley
• Salt and Pepper

Spread out bread cubes onto a baking sheet and put into the oven at 350 degrees F, bake until slightly browned, about 15 minutes.

While the bread is browning, render the pancetta and set aside the crisp bits. You can pour off the pancetta fat, or be thankful for it. Reserve a bit of it for sautéing the mushrooms. In the rest of the fat, at very low heat, brown the onion, shallot, and garlic.

This will take a while but go slow, if you cheat with high heat you'll burn the garlic, scorch the aromatics, and just end up with a bitter mess. What you want is a soft, rich brown, caramelized pan of amazingness. Season with salt and pepper.

Sauté your mushrooms in the pancetta fat and butter until they are tender and add the parsley. Season with salt and pepper.

In a large bowl, whisk together the milk, eggs, and a cup of the cheese.

To the eggs, milk, and cheese, add the bread, mushrooms, browned onions, pancetta bits, and mix thoroughly. Let the mixture soak for a half hour at room temperature until the bread soaks up the liquid.

Stir well and pour into an oiled 2 1/2-to-3-quart gratin dish (13 x 9 x 2 inches). Sprinkle with the remaining 1/2 cup cheese.

Bake for 45 to 50 minutes. You want the top to be brown and the custard set. Serve hot.

Cookiexperiment, Healthy

I've been experimenting with lo-sugar, butterless cookies recently. I am learning about different binders and substitutes for butter and eggs. This recipe uses bananas and has no butter, sugar, or eggs. Good for your vegan frenz, if you have vegan frenz. So far my most successful experiment. The cookies end up savory and not super sweet. If you want something sweeter, use slightly overripe bananas and sweeter chocolate.

Since I've got a tiny kitchen and a tiny oven, I make half batches (also good to not have 3 dozen cookies lying around).

My recipe as shown:

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

Whisk in a mixing bowl:
1 cup rolled oats
5 tbs. almond meal (I grind up raw unsalted almonds in my old bladed coffee grinder)
5 tbs. raw unsweetened shredded coconut
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. fine sea salt
1/2 tsp baking powder

Mix in another bowl:
2 ripe bananas, fork mashed
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
4 tbs. olive oil

Mix wet ingredients into dry and fold in:
3 oz. 90% cocoa chocolate, broken into chunks

Spoon into 2 tsp flattened balls about an inch apart (they won't spread much) and sprinkle a few grains of coarse sea salt on each.

Bake for 20 minutes or until nicely golden brown (I was experimenting with 2 tbs globs that ended up taking 45 minutes to fully cook). Cool for about 5 minutes before you nom.

Recipe Time! Spam Musubi

Musubi is a staple of the Hawaii brown bag lunch. Over the last 30 years the Spam Musubi has indelibly stamped itself on the local Hawaii menu. They are great snacks, highly mobile, and filling.

Spam Musubi Fo' Real

1 Can of Spam. Has to be the real thing. No substitutes.
1 Pkg. Roasted Nori Sheets (any kine brand is okay)
3 cups white short grain rice (any kine brand is okay)
Shoyu
Sugar
Salt

Equipment:
Musubi Mold
Rice Paddle
Knife
Cup of water (not for drinking)
Beer (for drinking)

Start by cooking the rice perfectly, seriously, Spam Musubi is basically just rice and meat. Rice usually takes anywhere between 15 to 20 minutes to prepare. In this time you can drink beer, or start prepping your protein.

After your beer, cut the loaf of spam into slices with round corners. If you have square corners after you've cut your first slice you should start over, your Spam is ruined. Heat a frying pan on medium heat and fry slices of spam, do not add oil, you do not want to spoil the delicate flavors of your Spam. As your Spam cooks it will shrink, at this point coat with shoyu, sprinkle sugar over each piece, and flip. Let this sit for a few seconds to carmelize, but not for too long, if you burn your glaze it'll be bitter. Repeat the glaze on the opposite side, remove from pan, and place onto a paper towel. Open a new beer if necessary.

Prepare your station with your sheets of nori, your musubi mold, a cup of water, rice paddle, knife, and a level cutting board. The cup of water is not for drinking, it's to keep your tools wet so they don't stick to your rice. Your beer is for drinking. Fold about a teaspoon of salt into your rice while it's hot, once it cools it will set up and become difficult to mix. You don't have to add this salt, but it'll make your musubi last longer in your lunch bag without refrigeration.

Assembling your musubi doesn't require a college degree (if it did, it would never exist!), lay the mold perpendicularly across your sheet of nori, fill with a layer of rice, lay down the Spam, another layer of rice, and compress. Fold over the ends of the nori and use a little water to seal it shut. Cut in half or fourths and serve.

While I love Spam Musubi, its ingredients exceed my recommended daily allowance for sodium induced flavor subtleties. To make the recipe more sustainable in my daily diet I use a 2 to 1 ratio of short grain brown to white rice. The cup of white works well to give it enough body to hold itself together and make it feel more accepted. Instead of Spam, I use tofu, insert obligatory Trader Joe's joke here.

Wrap your tofu in a clean dish towel and press with something heavy. I use my cast iron pans for about 20-25 minutes. Cut tofu into Spam-esque slices. If you don't have rounded corners on your tofu slices you should make it so. The perfect corner radius is vital to evoke the subtle flavors of Spam. Slicing the tofu also speeds up your marination time.

Marinate tofu in shoyu for about a half hour or longer. Heat a frying pan and fry tofu in your choice of oil. I recommend bacon fat or left-over Spam drippings if you have them (I didn't say this was vegetarian). Create the same shoyu sugar glaze as described above with your tofu slices. Assemble as usual or with options.

You can add a number of things to modify your musubi:
Teriyaki Sauce
Furikake
Pickles
Thinly Fried Scrambled Eggs
Portuguese Sausage
Kalua Pig
Mac Salad

Spam musubi is a great way to pack a lunch or take with you on a flight, I'd take a Spam musubi over an iPod in my bag any day.



Update: There's some pretty hilarious commentary on BoingBoing about Spam Musubi. Who would have thought this simple favorite could be so polarizing. Thanks Pesco!