Food, Home & Lifestyle
Dry Bread: Savory Pain de Mie Pain Perdu
Lesson time 07:58 min
Apollonia shares her savory approach to using dry bread in this tomato-and-curry-studded French toast, a departure from the typically sweet version.
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Topics include: Savory Pain de Mie Pain Perdu
Teaches Bread Baking
Poilâne CEO Apollonia Poilâne teaches the renowned Parisian bakery’s philosophy and time-tested techniques for baking rustic French breads.
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[MUSIC PLAYING] INSTRUCTOR: All of my bread cooking recipes stem from the idea that I do not want to waste a crumb of bread. From crust to the very last crumb, there's the work of the baker. There's the work of the miller. There's the work of the grower. And that value chain should not be wasted once the bread goes dry or is even stale. The recipe we're looking at right now is pain perdu, a savory pain perdu. I use the French word because it really represents and illustrates the term we usually use in America, French toast. Pain perdu means lost bread. It's not lost, because it can be used for baking into a new dish. And it both lends itself to sweet and savory cooking. So I'm going to illustrate today a savory French toast, a savory pain perdu. For this recipe, you're going to need a pain de mie that is a few days old. You need to be able to cut through it to cut thick slices. Tomatoes-- ideally, you have different sizes to have the topping tomatoes being smaller and the ones that are coming to the soaking sauce thicker. You need a little bit of fresh herbs. I used chives, but you can use whatever ones you have at hand. You need eggs, of course, to revive the bread, and some spices, so that the tomatoes are not the only flavor in your profile. The spices I'm using today are freshly ground black pepper and curry. Curry and tomatoes work well together and just give it more personality. The first step of this recipe is cutting the bread. Remove the trimming from your bread. Set it aside. You can use it and turn it into breadcrumb. And cut slices about two fingers thick to create your pain perdu. Don't make it too thin because it will soak in the eggs. For the soaking sauce, I'm going to add tomatoes and spices to the eggs. I put them in a food processor or blender. I use some curry. You can adjust to your liking. And especially if your tomatoes are a little bland, you might want to add a little more. Pinch or two of salt and some freshly-milled pepper. What I like about the tomatoes is that it has a lot of water to it, so it will really infuse color and flavor. The idea here is to just have one liquid mass to add to the eggs. Breaking the eggs. Whisk this together. And instead of using milk, which would be the usual French toast liquid, I'm going to put tomato and spice. I just bring it together so that it's one mass. The reason why I use tomatoes is because they will revive any dry toast. I'm going to soak the two slices of bread in it, and I can leave it on the side for a couple of minutes while I warm up my pan with a little bit of oil. I use oil here more than butter because I don't need to add some crust to it. But you're fine using butter if you want to. I'm just leaving the oil heat up and the toast to soak. You can toss them over. You can start preparing the topping. This savory pain perdu is a little bit of a pan con tomate. What's nice about cherry tomatoes or other colored tomatoes is that you can have differe...
About the Instructor
As a third-generation baker and CEO of the renowned Parisian bakery Poilâne, Apollonia Poilâne keeps time-honored traditions alive with every loaf. Now she’s sharing the joy of making bread from scratch with her recipes and hands-on demonstrations. Learn how to make your own starter and a variety of French breads, including rustic wheat, rye, and brioche. Taste, smell, and feel your way to fresh, warm bread at home.
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Apollonia Poilâne
Poilâne CEO Apollonia Poilâne teaches the renowned Parisian bakery’s philosophy and time-tested techniques for baking rustic French breads.
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