The last few slices of bread. Stale, dry, hard, sadly forgotten in the corner. No longer as appetizing as the fresh bread in the store. Maybe just… throw them away and buy some fresh bread?
Of course not – just because they’re dry doesn’t mean they’re to be thrown away. We can learn so much from our grandparents – even if they didn’t have much, they appreciated everything, down to the last slice. They had many recipes for making use of the stale bread so that nothing went to waste — and long before it got popular to talk about sustainability.
And because we don’t like food waste either, we’ve rounded up a few of our favorite ways to use up old bread. (Grandma would be so proud of us. <3)
Croutons
The best friend of any cream soup – their majesty, the Croutons! Put some butter on the dry slices of bread, cut the slices into cubes and add your favorite spices (you can’t go wrong with oregano or a little garlic). Bake them in the oven until dark and crispy, and voila! – you have delicious crunch in the form of croutons for your favorite cream soup, and why not for a salad.
French Toast
The classic childhood breakfast is actually a wonderful way to both use up old bread and keep everyone happy in the morning. Beat 2 eggs with half a tsp. milk. Add vanilla, cinnamon and 1 tbsp. sugar, mix well and the mixture is ready. All that remains is to dip the old slices in the mixture (it will be enough for a dozen slices) and fry them on both sides in a pan until golden. Enjoy them with some cheese and homemade jam!
Tarama Caviar
If you have friends or relatives from seaside towns, make sure to ask them if they have any recipes; the old fishermen had different techniques for making tarama caviar and you can hear of different crafts.
Here is our old recipe originating from Varna:
- 200 g of red caviar
- 500 ml. oil
- 300 g dry bread
- 1 lemon
- 1 onion
The crusts of the old bread are cut in advance. The rest of the bread is soaked in water, then squeezed and left to drain for a while.
The caviar is beaten with a mixer together with the bread and a grated onion. Then gradually add a little of the oil, constantly beating with the mixer. If the consistency is too thin in the end, a little more soaked stale bread (without the crusts) can be added.
Finally, add the juice of one lemon and mix. Served with a lemon wedge, olives and toast.
In fact, you may also come across quite a few tarama recipes that are made with plain bread (not dry). But fishermen quite often prepared caviar in this way precisely to use the dry stale bread. We definitely have a lot to learn about sustainability from our grandparents!