It’s Still Winter Here

More leeks?
Yes, and worthy of the attention. When I do menus, or when I want to suggest what will go well with a course I’ve just made a new recipe for, I sometimes say “an elaborate vegetable.” There are very good dishes that just somehow need to be accompanied by something more than a little heap of steamed or sautéed this or that. Or maybe you just get tired of eating one seasonal vegetable in the three or four ways you have of serving it. Or maybe there’s a vegetable you want to eat, but you don’t like it plain– that would be me with carrots, but I don’t like sweetened vegetables, so all those glazed recipes exist for no reason in this kitchen.
The sformato fills all those menu holes and it comes in many versions. The basic sformato is a vegetable in a savory custard with herbs and spices. It is often used to make something special from leftover vegetables that had their day in one of those little steamed piles on a plate. I often go to a little café where if they have a sformato I order it. They use up whatever was simply prepared the day before, and often their sformato is of several vegetables together. The sformato also makes a vegetarian main course that has lots of protein and doesn’t look like something you threw together so the vegetarian at the table wouldn’t starve.
This recipe is not made of leftovers, but is an experiment on what else to do with stale bread. Central Italy has loads of things for which one uses stale bread, but so far I hadn’t seen it used this way. The bread involved is stale but not hard and dried. That bread is for another day, and I do have a huge apothecary jar full of it.
This recipe is really good steaming hot from the oven. It reheats very well another day, too. With a microwave I’m sure it’s even more successful, but I don’t have one.
If your leeks are very dirty, strip off the tough outer leaves, wash well, then slice them and dump the slices into a bowl of cold water. Separate the rings with your fingers and the dirt will fall to the bottom of the bowl because it is heavier than the leeks. Then lift the leek rings out of the water into a colander and let them drain and dry. Do not just pour the leeks and water into a colander, because the dirt will get re-deposited on the leeks.

Sformato dei Porri (serves up to 6 as a vegetable and 3-4 as a main dish)

Preheat the oven to 350 F (175 C)

About 2 cups of leeks, cleaned and sliced into 1/8″ slices
1 tablespoon of olive oil
salt
4 pieces of stale sturdy bread, like a good peasant loaf, but not whole grain or rye or anything strongly flavored– pretty much your average Italian loaf, but if it is unsalted, you have to adjust the salt in the recipe
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs, slightly beaten
a good dash of Tabasco or a pinch of cayenne pepper (peperoncino in polvere)
a good sized pinch of nutmeg or 1/4 teaspoon
2 cups (1/2 litre) of milk, skim (scremato) is fine
about 1 to 1 1/2 ounces (30-45 g) of freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano

Oil or butter a 2 quart casserole, because if you don’t you will lose all the browned bottom crust.

In a frying pan, heat the olive oil, and then sauté the leeks in it with a little salt until they cook and begin to brown a little. This happens fairly quickly. Turn the heat off and leave them while you prepare the custard.

In a bowl, beat the eggs with a fork. Add the salt, the Tabasco or cayenne, and the nutmeg and beat them in. Add milk and beat with the fork until it is all incorporated. Add the leeks into this mixture and stir them in. (You can, if you wish, put some grated Parmigiano into the custard as well, but I think you should try it plain once first, and then decide if you want it cheesier.

Stand the stale bread pieces on end in the casserole. They should be just about the same height as your casserole. If they are too big, break them up. The crust parts should be uppermost when it’s ready for the oven, but don’t worry about that now.

Pour the leek custard over the bread pieces, then using the fork, dunk the bread chunks, which want to float, so that they all get doused completely in the custard. Then allow them to float, but with the crust side up so they will make crunchy parts on the top.

Sprinkle the Parmigiano Reggiano over the entire sformato. If you are using a deeper dish, you’ll need the lesser amount. If you are using a shallower dish, you’ll need more.

Pop it into the oven and cook it for about 40 minutes, but start testing it at about 30 minutes, because the dish you choose can alter the cooking time. When a tableknife blade is inserted about halfway between the center and the edge comes out with no liquid on it, the sformato is done. It should look puffy, brown and have a crunchy top.

The bread in the sformato seems to avoid the possible curdling of custard when cooked at relatively high temperatures, and it also makes the sformato puffier and reheatable. I liked this dish so much I wanted to share it with my neighbor, who happily tests new dishes with me, but suddenly, there wasn’t enough to share!