SC - Bread Crumb Thickening

[Philip & Susan Troy]

"Hupman, Laurie" wrote:
> 
> I recently tried the chicken and pear stew from "Ein Buch von Guter Spise,"
> which calls for bread crumbs as a thickener.  On the first day, the broth
> was thick, but still soupy.  After a day or two, it was quite thick, almost
> the consistency of gravy.  Does it always take more than a day for the
> breadcrumbs to break down and be absorbed into the liquid?  Should I be
> using drier or moister breadcrumbs to cause the reaction to happen faster?
> Should I use more and chance the leftovers having the consistency of
> concrete?

Probably not. I don't have a lot of experience with storing leftover
bread-thickened sauces, but I get the feeling that while stale bread is
what is often intended in a lot of period recipes, completely dry bread,
akin to commercial croutons or zweibeck crumbs, are not generally what
is intended, unless specifically mentioned. Some recipes do tell you to
toast the bread on the gridiron before using it in a dark-colored sauce,
and many don't, but a large number of them seem to call for the bread to
be steeped for an unspecified length of time in vinegar, wine, water, or broth.

Having made some modern bread-thickened sauces such as rouille and
skordalia (not to mention real gazpacho), I can state that it does take
a while for breadcrumbs to reach their full thickening power. You can
guess and hope for the best, using less than immediately seems
necessary, but I've had fair success with soaking the bread (actual
bread, not crumbs) in just enough liquid to cover in a container barely
big enough to hold it and the liquid. Yes, the bread will swell, but
when it's pushed down into the liquid it generally doesn't get much
bigger than its original volume plus that of the liquid, since air
bubbles are less of an issue in soaked bread. When you're ready to
thicken your sauce, puree the bread (which can be toasted for browning
before soaking) or push it through a strainer or sieve, then add and
beat it into your boiling liquid.

Done this way, you don't get a lot of change from the product when
freshly cooked and the next day, as far as I can tell, and you get a
pretty speedy thickening, requiring less guesswork.

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com