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I've made breadcrumbs a handful of times in the past, but never on a regular basis. However, I've had many missed breadcrumb opportunities as I've thrown away more crusts of bread than I'd like to admit. In an attempt to stop tossing perfectly good food, I've been trying to reinvent ingredients and last night, I made meatballs as a way to avoid waste.
The meatballs became dinner because I had a pound of local, grass-fed ground beef in the freezer and a big hunk of two week old bread (really good bread from Philly's Metropolitan Bakery) that needed to be used up. I also managed to salvage some aging green onions and the last two inches of a log of goat cheese in the process.
I always forget how easy it is to make breadcrumbs and how homemade ones enhance any food you pair them with. They gave the meatballs an appealing lightness while also allowing the exteriors to get nicely crunchy, creating a fantastic textural pairing. They're also wonderfully simple to make. My instructions are after the jump and the step-by-step pictures are in the gallery below.
How to make breadcrumbs
1. Slice bread into chunks. If you're using presliced bread, skip to step #2.
2. Gently toast bread.
3. Allow bread to cool completely (this is important. Using still-warm bread with lead to clumpy breadcrumbs).
4. Process in batches in a food processor or blender
5. Use any way you'd like
6. Store leftovers in jar or ziptop bag. They'll keep for several days in the fridge or even longer in the freezer.
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1-15-2009 @5:22PM Rt said... I saw an episode of Jacques Pepin's 'Fast Food My Way' where he did a shrimp gratin.
He recommended using fresh bread for that dish since it produced a lighter crust for the gratin. He is the only one I have heard say that and I thot it was worth mentioning.
I'm thinking he was a master of the 'use what's in the fridge' technique. I think I enjoyed every episode he ever made (certainly that can't be correct, but it sure seems that way). I like Justin Wilson as well. Julia Child certainly opened the door for laid-back cooking shows - I think I liked every one of her episodes as well, at least the ones where she did the cooking :)
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1-15-2009 @5:26PM AllAboutFood said... I'm reminded of the bread crumbs I used to make with my mom. She saved "old" bread in a bag made of cloth with a drawstring top. It would hang in the pantry. When the bag was full, I would help her put each piece through a hand grinder. I'm not sure why we didn't think to use a blender. No food processors at that time. And then my mom would make one of my favorites: fried breaded pork chops. My mouth is watering as I think of them.
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