May 2—During the early days of the pandemic, when everyone seemed to start baking bread at home, I began to wonder.
Old-school and artisan bakeries produce really excellent bread. Why not just buy it, as people have done for generations?
I understand the whys of the bread baking obsession on some level: Bringing a piece of starter to life is a cool pursuit, and the mixing, proofing, rolling and kneading of bread dough can be deeply satisfying — meditative, even — once you get the hang of it.
Problem is, even after many tries, bread baking is often an exercise in frustration. It takes way too much practice, precision and patience to turn out a loaf with a crisp crust and a soft, springy interior, so leave me to my cookies and quick breads.
If you can relate, you have a friend in James Beard Award-nominated bread maker Rick Easton, whose much-anticipated new cookbook, “Bread and How To Eat It” (Knopf, $30), just hit store shelves. Co-written with former Post-Gazette dining critic Melissa McCart, it’s a guide for home cooks who want to make the most of bread at every stage of its life cycle.
That includes when it’s days old and this side of stale, and perfect fodder for making one of the simplest and most utilitarian ingredients in a kitchen: breadcrumbs.
Nearly all of its 70-plus recipes, in fact, focus more on what to do with bread once you bring it home from the bakery than how to make it.
There are topping suggestions for slices — ricotta and whipped salt cod are stars, and it’s also ideal for French toast. There are thoughts on sandwiches — mortadella, Easton writes, makes arguably the “greatest bologna sandwich of all time” — and advice on what to do with pieces of old bread, which includes making croutons.
You'll also find several pasta and meatball recipes, and simple dishes to eat with bread, including eggplant and purslane salads and greens and beans. Breakfast cereal and sweets make an appearance, too.
“Personally, I think people who bake bread at home are nuts,” Easton, who grew up in Washington County, says in the book’s introduction. “It’s time-consuming. It’s inefficient. Home ovens aren’t designed to bake bread.”
Never one to mince words, he likens it to riding a bike on bent rims: “You can do it, but most of us wouldn’t.”
So the three not-so-simple recipes for bread, biscuit-like friselle and pizza dough he includes in the book? Good luck, if you’re a beginner.
“If Rick had his way, there would be no baking at all in the book,” says McCart, now editor of Eater NY. “But people want to bake so we needed a few recipes.”
Everything else in the cookbook “is how we eat at home, and how he cooks for the bakery,” says McCart — simple, with an emphasis on quality ingredients and thoughtful preparation.
Easton entered Pittsburgh’s food scene in 2013 and in January 2015 opened the popular bakery and restaurant Bread and Salt in Bloomfield. A year later, after being named a James Beard Awards semifinalist for Outstanding Baker, he closed the bakery and moved to New York City, where he made pizza and sandwiches at various pop-ups and restaurants while he figured out his next move.
It came in 2019, when he opened a new iteration of Bread and Salt Bakery in the Heights neighborhood of Jersey City. He quickly earned a buzz for his square, Roman-style pizzas, sandwiches, pastas, Italian pastries and not-bread dishes such as meatballs, fava beans and salads. Many days, the line stretches out the door at lunchtime, “without booze!” McCart says.
The couple first pondered a cookbook in 2015 and even sold the idea to a publisher. But there were so many cutbacks during the process that the project was shelved.
When home baking became a thing during the first months of the pandemic, Knopf picked up where the other publisher left off. The redesign took six months. After reframing the book, the pair re-edited what they'd previously written, and fine-tuned and tweaked the recipes.
Because Easton wanted it as minimalist as possible, they also decided to style and photograph all the recipes in Bread and Salt’s kitchen and restaurant, 10 at a time, instead of working with a stylist in a studio.
“So it looked like his Instagram feed,” says McCart.
The result is a book that’s as appetizing for the eye as it is for a hungry belly. Photographer Johnny Fogg’s four-page montage of Easton breaking open snack-sized suppli, a type of rice ball, is especially drool-worthy.
Other than the bread recipes, the book is totally accessible for even a beginning cook. Reading it, you'll feel like you’re sitting around the kitchen table listening to a trusted but sometimes cranky and often funny friend.
“Rick has such a clear and definite way of speaking,” McCart says, so some things were softened. “But I tried to ensure it was his voice.”
Most of the dishes have deep roots in southern Italy and Sicily, where the self-taught baker has traveled extensively. Really old Italian recipes from the 19th century, especially those of Pelligrino Atrusi, who wrote what’s known as the Gospel of Italian cooking in 1891, “have always been his thing,” says McCart, in part because he grew up reading history. (Both his parents are professors at Washington & Jefferson College in Washington, Pennsylvania.)
“But he’s always tweaking them. One day it’s this way, and the next day maybe a little different.”
Some were dictated from handwritten notes Easton jotted on butcher paper; others were developed from a list the couple scribbled on the back of a napkin for the book pitch.
Whatever the genesis, they all drive home the same point: Whether you’re baking your own or not, bread should not be an afterthought.
“Customers often don’t know what to do with bread, and how to treat it, so we wanted to write something the help them,” says McCart.
In these tough economic times, “Bread and How to Eat It” is also a manifesto for anyone who wants to cook better with fewer ingredients. “If you’re using bread to extend the life of a dish, it kind of saves you money,” she says.
Their recipe for bread meatballs — made with stale bread soaked in milk — is a classic example.
One little section that’s quite important, McCart adds, instructs on how to slice and store your bread (never in plastic!) and the importance of developing a relationship with a baker.
“Just find a local one, and go often,” she says.
And if you happen to find yourself in Jersey at his bakery? A friend from Superiority Burger recently gave Easton a gelato machine, so now the baker is experimenting with what McCart calls “old man” flavors of the frozen dessert like chamomile and a wildly popular fennel, “which we just love so much!”
Meatballs With Quick Tomato Sauce
PG tested
This recipe works best with bread that is two or three days old and starting to dry out but still with a little give. I used two eggs and 80 percent lean ground beef.
Ingredients- A little more than 1/2 cup (at least 135 grams) stale bread town into pieces (no crust)
- 2 3/4 cups milk or water, enough to moisten the bread
- 2 1/4 cups ground beef
- 1/4 cup grated aged Pecorino
- A handful or so of fresh flat-leaf parsley, stemmed and finely chopped
- 1-2 eggs
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- Salt and pepper
- Olive or grapeseed oil, for frying
Directions
Tear bread into small pieces. Heat the milk or water until it’s warm but not boiling, and pour it on the bread on a rimmed sheet pan. Let it sit until the bread absorbs most of the milk and the mixture cools enough to easily handle.
Once the bread has absorbed the milk, squeeze out the milk like a sponge. You have to drain it thoroughly to avoid excess liquid that would get into the meatballs. Then, add bread to the ground beef and work it into a paste. Next, add grated cheeses, parsley, egg, garlic, salt and pepper, and mix thoroughly with your hands.
Once it’s mixed really well and bound in a homogeneous mixture, pinch off a nugget and cook in a skillet over medium-high heat. Taste to see if it’s seasoned well, adjust seasoning as needed.
Form meatball mixture into balls the size of pingpong balls (about 1 1/4 inches in diameter). Dampen your palm and roll, with joined fingers on one hand and slightly cupped on the other. Roll very gently and have a little bowl of water next to you to keep your palm damp but not wet. You want a nice, smooth surface. When they’re too dry, they crack and when you fry them, they take on more oil and come apart.
Allow the shaped meatballs to rest in the fridge for a while, from an hour to overnight.
When you’re ready to cook them, heat enough oil to cover the meatballs to 350 degrees in a deep pot. Fry in batches for 2-3 minutes, using two forks to turn them very gently as they cook. They should be brown and crisp on the outside and soft on the inside.
Allow oil to come back up to temperature before adding the next batch. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the meatballs to paper towels to drain. Serve with Quick Tomato Sauce (recipe follows).
Makes about 20 meatballs.
— “Bread and How to Eat It” by Rick Easton with Melissa McCart
Quick Tomato Sauce
This sauce comes together in about the same time it takes to boil a pot of pasta. I used a Fresno chile and canned San Merican tomatoes (formerly San Marzano Tomatoes) from Pennsylvania Macaroni Co. in the Strip District.
Ingredients- Olive oil
- 1 small garlic clove, thinly sliced
- 1 small hot red chile pepper (dried or fresh), stemmed, seeded and finely chopped
- 1 28-ounce can top-quality canned whole, peeled tomatoes with their juices
- Salt
- 1 or 2 fresh basil leaves
Directions
Lightly coat a saute pan with olive oil. Add garlic and start the heat on low, increasing it gradually so the garlic has time to release its flavor without burning.
Once the garlic begins to sizzle, add chile pepper and some of the liquid from the canned tomatoes. Crush the tomatoes by hand into the pan, season with salt and toss in basil. Increase the heat to medium-high, partially cover, and cook for 6-8 minutes, until the chunks of tomato have mostly broken down to form a reduced and thickened sauce.
Makes about 2 1/2 cups.
Polpetti Di Pane (Bread Meatballs)
PG tested
This recipe not only gives stale bread an afterlife, it give vegetarians something to cheer about. While they’re delicious with red sauce and a dusting of grated cheese, Rick Easton likes to eat them with lemon slices.
Ingredients- 1 large slice stale bread in pieces (preferably without the crust)
- 1 3/4 cups whole milk, or as needed depending on how dry the bread is
- 4 ounces hard Pecorino
- Handful fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves
- 1 small clove garlic
- 1 egg
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
- Olive oil for frying
Directions
Place pieces of bread in a mixing bowl. If any are particularly large, break them up into a uniform size.
Heat milk in a pan until it is hot but not boiling, stirring occasionally to prevent it from forming a skin. Pour hot milk over the bread in the bowl. Stir every now and then to make sure all the pieces are submerged and absorbing the liquid evenly.
Meanwhile, grate the cheese, finely chop the parsley and mince the garlic. Use a fork to beat the egg thoroughly in a bowl.
After the bread has absorbed all the milk, give it a squeeze. The pieces should be soft but not too wet. If they aren’t entirely soft and no milk is left in the bowl, heat a little more milk and add it to the mixture. If the bread has softened but it weeps when you squeeze it, drain in a sieve before you proceed.
Add cheese, parsley, garlic and egg to the softened bread mixture. Season with salt and pepper and knead thoroughly in the bowl until you have a homogenous mixture.
With slightly damp hands, roll the mixture into balls slightly smaller than pingpong balls (about 1 1/4 inch in diameter) and place on a lightly greased sheet pan or plate.
Line a plate with paper towels. Heat a few inches of oil in a small pot. Once oil is hot (350-360 degrees) but not smoking, fry bread balls in batches of three or four until golden brown, 2 1/2 -3 minutes, then transfer to paper towels to drain. The polpetti will firm up as they cool. Wait a minute or two for the oil to come back to temperature between batches.
Serve immediately or simmer briefly in tomato sauce before serving.
Serves 2-4.
— “Bread and How to Eat It” by Rick Easton with Melissa McCart
Pasta With Breadcrumbs And Raisins
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Raisins might seem like an odd thing to throw into a pan of pasta but it’s fairly commonplace in Sicily. I used bucatini instead of spaghetti and upped the amount for larger servings.
Ingredients- Salt
- 2 tablespoons raisins
- 3 1/2 ounces dried spaghetti
- 1 garlic clove
- 1 small dried hot chile pepper, stemmed and seeded
- Olive oil
- 1 1/2 cups Toasted Breadcrumbs, plus more for serving (recipe follows)
- Fresh flat-leaf parsley, optional
Directions
Bring a large pot of water to boil. Salt it generously.
Ladle about a 1/2 cup of the hot water over the raisins in a bowl to rehydrate and soften them. Add pasta to the pot of boiling water.
Meanwhile, thinly slice garlic and finely chop hot pepper. Add garlic to a skillet with a thread of olive oil and start over low heat. Once the garlic begins to sizzle, stir in the chopped hot pepper, then dump in raisins with their soaking liquid.
Once the spaghetti is almost cooked, drain it, reserving some of the cooking water. Add noodles to the skillet; increase the heat to high and toss with the raisins, adding pasta cooking water as needed, until it is cooked al dente. Salt to taste.
Drizzle in a little olive oil, toss with toasted breadcrumbs and add a few leaves of parsley, if desired. Serve with additional breadcrumbs at the table.
Serves 2.
— “Bread and How to Eat It” by Rick Easton with Melissa McCart
Toasted Breadcrumbs
PG tested
Breadcrumbs are an essential staple in every home kitchen. They take just a few minutes to prepare and when stored in an airtight container in the pantry, last for months. Use to top pasta, sprinkle on a casserole or layer in a gratin.
Ingredients
- 1 quarter loaf or half loaf of bread broken into hunks, then reduced to crumbs by grating or pulsing in a food processor
- Olive oil, for drizzling
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Spread breadcrumbs across a rimmed baking sheet in a single layer and drizzle with just enough olive oil to coat the crumbs evenly, tossing them to achieve a texture that’s closer to dry than damp.
Bake for a few minutes, then give them a stir to promote even browning. Continue baking; once the breadcrumbs turn an attractive shade of reddish brown — watch them closely, 5-10 minutes — slide onto a plate to stop cooking.
Alternatively, heat a cast-iron or nonstick skillet over medium heat. Once pan is hot, pour in a thin coat of olive oil and add breadcrumbs. Stir frequently until they are the desired color. Transfer to a plate lined with a paper towel to drain and cool.
Store cooled toasted breadcrumbs in an airtight container and use as needed. They'll last for at least a few months.
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