Recently, I had an unexpected culinary surprise, all because of a very well prepared piece of toast.

I was working on a video shoot with my good friend Chef Glenn Humphrey all about an elegant meal made easy. We prepared a few salads and dressings, whipped up two ways to work with potatoes, and fired up a gorgeous dessert classic (comeback soon for the video).

In betwixt them three, we found ourselves trimming up a beef tenderloin and bringing to light the beauty of a petite cut, fried and finished with a gorgeous pan sauce of butter, mushroom, shallot, red wine and brandy… hmmm what was I talking about?

Oh yeah, when we came into the kitchen that afternoon, Chef Humphrey had some day old bread on his table. My obvious question made him smile and say “I’m making croutons.” I left it at that and hit the powder room for a costume change and some lipstick. It was long after the salad shoot that I noticed his oversized croutons sitting on a back table but plated individually. My assumption ~ he forgot to use them on his salad.

We moved onto our Pomme Anna and Duchess Potatoes (yummy!) and then went through that tenderloin process mentioned above. Listen, I’ve cooked lots of meat lots of ways, and I’ll put my pan sauces up against the best of them. It was Chef Glenn’s plating of a choice piece of tenderloin on that damned crouton that took me back a step or two. Good on you, Glenn!!

Even when I saw it happening, I still didn’t get it. You all know how I talk about taste and smell and all those things that take us back. Well, those particular sensorial triggers didn’t kick in this time around. What, pray you, was it then that sent my senses reeling? 

One word ~ texture. I cut through a piece of that succulent beef and felt the crunch of the bread underneath; forked a few mushrooms and stirred it all round in the sauce. Once I popped that little gem in my mouth I was instantly taken to a buttered piece of toast with round steak and gravy in my mom’s farmhouse kitchen – CLASSIC!!

Oddly, that was not my only recent crouton experience. I also witnessed an ACF (American Culinary Federation) Junior competition where I swear the winner of that particular battle won on her crouton preparation! Don’t get me wrong, her entrée was absolutely divine, but one judge in particular went gaga for a buttered and fried piece of day old bread! Who woulda’ thunk it? Apparently, not me!!

Live Well, Eat Well

Heidi

 

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