Recipe courtesy of Jonathan Waxman

Savory Bread Pudding

  • Level: Easy
  • Yield: 4 to 6 servings
  • Total: 45 min
  • Active: 25 min
I love bread pudding, but in New Orleans they do savory ones to accompany meat-centric dishes. Not the lightest of fare, but the mushroom duxelles makes the day.
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Ingredients

1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened, plus more for greasing the pan

4 large eggs 

1 cup heavy cream 

3 ounces cognac 

Sea salt and cracked black pepper 

1 sourdough batard, such as Acme bakery loaf, cut into 1/2-inch-thick slices 

12 ounces fresh king trumpet mushrooms 

3 shallots, peeled and halved 

2 tablespoons olive oil 

1 spring onion, peeled and sliced thinly 

Directions

  1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Grease a 3-quart casserole dish with butter.
  2. Whisk the eggs, heavy cream, cognac and some salt and pepper in a large bowl. Place the bread slices into the egg-cream mixture and let sit for 5 minutes.
  3. Cut the mushrooms into large dice and add to food processor along with the shallots and process until finely, finely chopped. Put a large cast-iron pan over medium-high heat and add 4 tablespoons of the butter. Once the pan is heated, add the mushroom/shallot mixture and cook until browned, about 5 minutes.
  4. Turn the heat under a medium cast-iron pan to medium-high and add the oil. Once heated, add the sliced spring onion and sear until browned on both sides, about 5 minutes total.
  5. To assemble, first put a third of the bread in the prepared casserole dish, then half of the mushroom duxelles, half of the seared onion and another third of the bread. Press down and top with the remaining mushroom duxelles and onions. Top with the remaining bread and dot with the remaining 4 tablespoons butter. Put into the oven and bake until golden brown, about 15 minutes.

Let's Get Cooking!

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Michelle A.

As I love love love mushrooms, I had jotted down this recipe from seeing it on TV, then came here because some measurements were missing and read the reviews which caused some concern. One thing I thought was that the duxelles combined with the egg-soaked bread would be lacking textural interest, in addition to the duxelles I added 1/2 pound of sliced mushrooms, well sauteed, to the layers. Then, after reading the comments, I decided to make 1/2 as the recipe said and the other half with adding swiss cheese to the layers (topped that side w/ cheese & did not dot w/ butter). I bake enough bread puddings and stuffed french toast to know 15 minutes would never cut it. It was baked 35 minutes covered w/ foil and another 20 minutes without. The result? Well the swiss side is much better than the non-swiss side, but it still won't do. It is blah and uninteresting. I do like having the cognac in there, but I also often add sherry to my mushroom dishes. I'm glad I made this for me and not to serve to friends as I would have been embarrassed to serve this to anyone. Save your time and money and don't bother.

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