We recently dined at Kismet and yes, had to have their bread pudding! It reminded me that we learned to make it last winter and the time has come to drink & eat more bone broth — here is a great way to eat it!
Friends are wonderful for so many reasons, one of which is inspiration and new recipes. Our friends Brent & Liz, fabulous cooks that took over our kitchen this weekend, came with new recipes that work well with our farm fresh ingredients. This was the most decadent one. Decadent, but also so comforting and delicious. To add to the weekend’s decadence and for a comparison, we also dined at Kismet and had their bread pudding. They are similar in style, deliciousness, so make some at home AND have a version at Kismet!
We adapted a bit to fit our farm ingredients. But the recipe comes from New York Times Cooking and a great article by Samin Nosrat of Salt,Fat, Acid, Heat.
One of her key notes, ” This dish is about the marriage of bread and stock, so the better these are, the better the panade will be. And don’t be afraid to really submerge the bread in the stock before baking.”
Ingredients
- Bread, something delicious, crusty & available to soak up broth, but now stale (1 lb or so; enough to fit your pan)
- 6-8 tablespoons of Butter, poultry fat, lard or other good fat
- 4 lbs (or so) of onions, thinly sliced
- salt
- 2 Tablespoons nice vinegar (we used local cider vinegar)
- 1/4 cup wine or hard cider
- 5-6 cups bone broth, anything good will work
- 2-4 cups of grated cheese (original recipe calls for a mix of gruyere & parmesan, we used some of those and some Vermont tarentaise. Cheddar would also work as would a mix of cheeses. Kismet has worked in some blue cheese, which is lovely! – cheese as you like it by type and volume)
Directions
Make sure bread is dry/stale.
- If not already, slice and put on a cookie sheet in the oven to toast and dry. She calls for a crusty sourdough. We used what we had in the freezer, which was a mix of Red Hen baguette and one of Deeter’s hearty german style rye.
Caramelize the onions
- Using a sturdy pot, cast iron pan or dutch oven, melt 4-5 tablespoons of your fat of choice over medium heat, once melted add the sliced onions and a teaspoon of salt. Cook covered for 15 minutes, occasionally stirring (wooden spoon is best).
- If at 15 min, onions have cooked down a bit and released some liquid, remove the cover and increase heat a bit to medium high. Continue cooking and stir regularly until onions are tender and dark golden, about 45 minutes.
- Turn off the heat and add vinegar and wine/cider and stir to deglaze the pan. Taste and adjust as necessary. They should be “sweet, savory and pleasantly tangy.” We had to add a bit more vinegar. Put finished onions aside in a bowl.
Heat the broth
- Once onions are removed, heat the broth in the pan used to caramelize the onions, this will allow you to get all that goodness that may have been left behind. As it warms, scrape pan well. Taste and add a smidge of salt if needed, though if you are going to use salty cheese, go easy or skip any additional salt.
Prep Cheese
- Shred or grate your cheeses and mix together
Assemble & Bake
- Preheat oven to 425
- Grease (with butter or fat of choice) a baking pan. She uses a 9×13 baking dish, we used a 10 inch (though could have used a 12 inch) cast iron pan. It was fabulous and super pretty in the cast iron.
- Line bottom with a layer of the bread, breaking up pieces as need to get a fairly solid layer.
- Spoon half the onions over the bread and then sprinkle with 1/3 of the cheese and you could add some pepper at this point
- Do another layer of bread, rest of onions and 1/3 cheese
- Final layer of bread (hold remaining cheese till end)
- Ladle 3 cups (or so) of broth over the panade and then wait a few minutes, allowing bread to absorb it (you can poke or press it a bit to help it absorb) Add as much more broth as possible without overflowing. (we nearly overflowed so baked it with a cookie sheet under it)
- Can dot top layer of bread with a few tablespoons of butter
- Cover with parchment paper and foil and put in the oven
- Bake 30 minutes covered (or a bit less if using convection), then remove foil & parchment. We checked at this point to see if we could add a bit more broth and added a little bit.
- Sprinkle with remaining cheese and return to oven for 15 minutes more. Bake until golden brown.
Enjoy
Hot out of oven (click for video)
- Allow panade to cool for at least 10 minutes before serving
If you have leftovers, we added broth during our reheating either in oven or microwave both as a way to get more broth in and to ensure it didn’t dry out.
