Get a feel for our new magazine, Companion, with this hearty pasta recipe – one of three in a series from the publication that looks to the Italian kitchen for inspiration on making the most of leftover bread.
Our recently launched magazine, Companion, is our publication exploring food, history, nature, and craft through essays, stories, recipes, and art. Issue 1 – The Bread Issue – delves into wheat’s terroir, baking in prisons, the visual beauty of a regenerative wheat farm and many more inspiring tales.
Here, we’re sharing an edited excerpt from the magazine and one of three recipes for leftover bread. Discover the other two by picking up your own copy of Companion here.
“Wheat milled into flour, flour made into dough, dough baked into a loaf that's sliced or torn and often baked again.”
Every year, around 900,000 tonnes of bread are thrown away and much of it from loaves we slice open and struggle to finish before they go stale. What beautiful things could become of that bread if only we tried harder to use it?
Scott Cutler Shershow writes about bread as the “ultimate transformational food…always in the process of changing from one thing to another.” Wheat milled into flour, flour made into dough, dough baked into a loaf that's sliced or torn and often baked again. Sometimes, even transforming back into an ingredient itself.
Cultures around the world have long found ways to transform bread into a valuable ingredient in their cuisines. From the French pain perdu (literally meaning ‘lost bread') and English bread pudding to Portuguese açorda (bread soup), Balkan popara (bread porridge), Middle Eastern muhammara and Vietnamese Bánh Chuôi (banana cake made with bread scraps and coconut milk).
The regional cuisines of Italy have hundreds if not thousands of dishes with old bread as a primary ingredient. Panzanella, ribollita, acquacotta, zuppa di latte: all dishes that not only utilise stale bread, but also benefit from it.
“Good bread made with good flour does not age, but matures,” notes famed Italian chef, Fabio Picchi. And this recipe for a hearty, soul-warming pasta dish made from bread is the perfect testament to that…
Passatelli in Brodo (Stale Bread Pasta in Broth)
Passatelli hails from Emilia-Romagna, just south-east of Lombardy. Stale bread is made into crumbs so that it functions like flour. Combined with eggs, parmesan and spices, it turns into a tender, gnocchi-like pasta with a wonderfully chewy texture that’s difficult to mimic in a typical dough. The pasta is cooked and served in flavourful broth, making for an extremely simple but satisfying dish. We recommend you use a loaf on its fourth or fifth day when it's quite stale (or mature, if you will). The staler your bread, the more delicious this recipe becomes.
Serves 4
Ingredients
For the pasta
200g stale white bread, crusts removed
100g grated parmesan
Zest of ½ a lemon
¼ tsp ground nutmeg
4 eggs
For the broth
1l seasoned chicken or vegetable broth
A small handful of fresh sage, leaves picked
Cracked black pepper
Grated parmesan cheese
Method
- You’ll want your bread to be quite stale for this. If it feels too soft, cut into cubes and bake at 90°C for 15–20 minutes until dry. Avoid oily breads such as focaccia, as this can prevent the dough from holding its shape.
- Make the breadcrumbs by pulsing the stale bread in a blender or food processor. To ensure a smooth dough, use a sieve or remove any larger chunks by hand.
- Pulse the breadcrumbs with the remaining ingredients until it forms a wet dough. Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface until it comes together (as the bread hydrates, the dough will become less sticky).
- Wrap the dough in cling film and leave to rest for one to two hours at room temperature.
- Using a potato ricer with large gauge holes, squeeze the dough through the grater onto a lightly floured tray, trimming the tubes to 4–5cm as they protrude.
- In a large saucepan, bring the seasoned broth to a simmer with a few sage leaves. Once simmering, add the pasta. You’ll know the pasta is cooked when it floats (this should take about 60 seconds).
- Ladle into bowls, season with cracked black pepper and serve with a generous sprinkling of grated parmesan cheese.
Hungry for more? Pick up a copy of Companion here.
