How to make the perfect layers – recipe | food

AAlso known as “breakfast casserole” and “egg casserole,” strata is a favorite American brunch dish, and according to top American chef Sahla El Waily, is best described as “the love child of frittata and bread pudding,” while the name of the dish comes from the fact that it is assembled in layers. Like all of the best leftover recipes, these layers are incredibly flexible, but the common thread between all the layers is day-old bread and eggs. The rest is largely up to you.

I’ll be honest, despite its richness, the layers are not something I deal with before lunchtime, so I was relieved to read the late book James Villas explained “In the South, classes are traditionally served at a casual buffet dinner or at a casual dinner,” he says. However, when you plan to enjoy it, note that according to America’s Favorite Cookbook, The joy of cookingIf necessary, the ever-changeable layers can be assembled “and refrigerated overnight, then baked the next day, leaving you with nothing to do but make coffee.” Or mix a bloody mary.

Bread

This recipe should comfortably accommodate any savory bread you want to use — rye bread, cornbread, even garlic bread will give your layers a little different character — though I’d avoid anything too delicate, like brioche. Samuel Goldsmith suggests Baguette slices in the spinach and tomato version in her canned tomato cookbook, and there’s smoked salmon with bread on Food52 and numerous Take on croissants online.

However, most writers call for either “high-quality white sandwich loaf” or “supermarket-style French or Italian bread,” and I use supermarket ciabatta bread. I prefer the firmer, chewier texture of the latter, or sourdough; The white loaf tin melts into the custard, especially when used fresh. For this reason, I suggested cutting the slices in the oven first. arlene osborne, He writes on Serious Eats Oven-drying bread “extracts moisture while leaving the crumb structure intact, making oven-dried bread a better choice than stale bread.” She adds that Restructuring of starch molecules during the stalling process makes the bread tough and not crispy. However, this is first and foremost a recipe about using up leftovers, so if you have completely stale bread already, by all means skip this step – it will still be good.

Most of the layers contain cubes of bread, which is strange, because, as Vilas points out somewhat caustically, “if the basic ingredients are not arranged in alternate layers, the dish is not true layers but an ordinary casserole.” Thick slices will As Cooks Illustrated notesHelp keep layers intact and achieve a more accurate final result. (Again, if you’re using a loaf that doesn’t lend itself to slicing, simply cut or tear it into pieces instead.)

Custard

The recipes I try are divided between those who make their layers with a rich, flour-heavy white sauce, like Villas and chef and writer Amy Thelen’s recipe; And those, like Cooks Illustrated, Osborne, and Melissa Clark at the New York Times, who prefer egg custard (which seems to be the more popular modern choice). The benefit of the former is that it is cheaper and less temperamental and can be made as rich or plain as you like simply by adjusting the number of eggs you end up beating. But a plate of baked bread with a starchy sauce could be accused of being boring, especially early in the morning. The custard is more delicate and almost like a quiche filling if it contains heavy cream (the American equivalent of British whipping cream).

Since this is, in theory, a breakfast dish, I sided on the egg custard side of the argument, but testers found some examples disgustingly “thin,” bringing back painful memories, they claim, of school dinner pancakes. I attribute this to the high milk content – ​​the more water in the emulsion, the greater the risk of it breaking down in the heat of the oven. Mixing milk with something higher in fat, like cream, is good insurance, and results in a firm, silky result rather than a watery, watery one. I chose tangy crème fraîche, but any thick cream will do.

Thielen brings some Minnesota flair to the “egg dish” in her book The New Midwestern Table by including layers of sliced ​​cooked eggs rather than whisking raw eggs into the sauce. However, although we enjoyed the rest of her dish, the baked poached eggs came across as a bit dry and rubbery; Clark’s idea of ​​cracking raw eggs into the top layers midway through the baking process seems like a better option if you want extra protein.

Flavors and ingredients

Strata is a good go-to for more than just stale bread—leftover vegetables, leftover meats, and tips of cheese can go in, so it’s worth bookmarking this recipe for Twixmas. The recipes I’m trying use spinach leaves (fresh and frozen), curly kale, bacon, leeks, and mushrooms, as well as soft goat cheese and several types of hard materials including Gruyère, mild cheddar, and Parmesan. The golden rule, as is often the case in baking, is to make sure you remove as much water as possible before introducing it to the other ingredients, which means cooking the vegetables beforehand. (Since I don’t agree with The Glory of Southern Cooking for great mushrooms, raw mushrooms tend to leak a lot of water, fry the bacon, etc.)

Clark’s recipe adds greens (baby kale, mustard greens, and chard) and herbs to the custard itself, turning it a vibrant green, which looks great, though my tester and I miss the texture of the leaf layer. They also introduce Parmesan to the custard itself, which if you want the cheese to act more as a condiment rather than a star player, is a great idea. However, if you want melted cheese, use a milder, softer type as the topping itself; Gruyère, Emmental, Red Leicester, Double Gloucester or Medium Cheddar are all ideal candidates, but again, they’ll work with any combination you have on hand. Match your seasonings to the ingredients: mustard, Tabasco, fresh thyme… If they wouldn’t be out of place in a quiche, or folded into scrambled eggs, they’re a fairly safe bet in toppings, too.

I’ve chosen a classic combination of spinach (this is a great place for the frozen variety), leeks and cheese, with a grating of nutmeg, but substitute those as you see fit; An easy way to judge how much of a particular ingredient you need is to simply spread it over the base of a baking dish and see if you can get two layers of it. Garlic and nutmeg seem inevitable with spinach, but if it’s too early in the day for you, you can always leave them out, or actually replace them with green onions, leeks or a mild red onion.

If you’re thinking about eating this for lunch or dinner, you might also want to consider replacing some of the liquid in the custard with chicken or vegetable broth, or flavoring it with a few tablespoons of dry white wine diluted by half, as in this Cook’s Illustrated recipe; Both give it a slightly more complex, dare I say sophisticated flavour. Nobody wants that at breakfast time.

Resting and cooking

Thielen is the only person who didn’t give the custard a chance to soak before baking, proving that if you’re late, the situation isn’t irreparable. However, the layers will hold together better if you leave them on – I don’t find much difference between the one hour in Cook’s Illustrated and the six in Villa, and you can even leave it to mix overnight, if you wish, preferably with a weight on top to help define the layers more clearly.

As with anything custard-based, keep the oven at a moderate temperature to avoid curdling – 160°C ((140°C)/325°F/Gas 3) rather than the 180°C ((160°C)/350°F/Gas 4) that many recipes call for – and leave to rest before serving, as eggs taste much better warm From hot.

The layers do not freeze well, but can be frozen a day ahead. These amounts can be easily increased or decreased as well.

Perfect layers

Preparatory school 20 minutes
cold 1 hour +
He cooks 1 hour and 50 minutes
serves 4-6

About 250 grams of bread -I love sourdough or ciabatta
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small leektrimmed and cut into thin slices
250 grams frozen spinachThawed or about 500 grams of fresh spinach, thawed in a large pan with a little water
2 garlic clovesPeeled and ground
Salt and black pepper
6 eggs
100 grams Full fat crème fraicheOr double cream
175 ml whole milk

nutmeg
Butter or oilfor lubrication
100 grams of grated cheese (e.g., Gruyere, Emmental, medium cheddar)

Unless your bread is really hard and crispy, preheat the oven to 120°C (100°C fan)/Gas ½. Cut the bread into thick slices (about 1½ cm), then spread it on a baking tray. Place in the oven for about an hour, stirring once halfway through, until dry and cooked, then remove and leave to cool.

Meanwhile, heat half the oil in a frying pan over medium-low heat and fry the leeks until they are soft and tender, but not brown. Ladle into a medium bowl.

Squeeze as much water as possible from the spinach, then chop it roughly. Heat the rest of the oil in the same pan, add the garlic and fry for a minute or so until fragrant. Add the spinach and saute until the pan is dry, then add to the bowl of leeks and season.

Beat the eggs well in a jug, then whisk enough into the crème fraîche to break them up. Once that’s completely combined, put it back in the jug, add the milk, whisk again, and season generously with salt and nutmeg.

To assemble, grease a baking dish large enough to hold the bread in two layers, then spread half the vegetables and a third of the grated cheese into the base. Place half the amount of bread, then repeat, saving the last amount of cheese for later.

Pour the custard over the second layer of bread (it should be completely submerged), then cover and refrigerate, preferably with something heavy on top for weight and compaction. Leave it for at least an hour, although overnight is fine.

Preheat the oven to 160°C (140°C)/325°F/Gas 3. Remove the layers from the fridge and sprinkle the remaining cheese all over the top. Bake for about 50 minutes, until golden on top, then remove and leave to cool slightly before serving.

• Strata, Breakfast Casserole, Egg Casserole: Why hasn’t this brunch of champions caught on outside the US? And with Sahla El-Waylly’s recommendation for pizza and Southwestern-themed versions, what’s the best thing you’ve found about it?