A little sourdough bread always seems to get left aside. After two or three weeks it dries out completely, hard as a stone. Unlike modern breads, sourdough rarely stales, it only dries out. The history of cooking is full of recipes that deal with leftover dry bread.
Dry bread soups appear in many old food traditions around the Mediterranean and Middle East. Italian pancotto and acquacotta, Tuscan pappa al pomodoro, Arab tharid, and Levantine fatteh all begin with the same wise kitchen idea: bread should not be wasted. Once it is too dry to eat as bread, it can still soften into broth, thicken a pot of soup, and turn leftovers into a meal.
The method is very simple: make a generous, liquid-rich soup, then add pieces of dry sourdough near the end. The bread softens and breaks down, giving the soup a deep, tangy flavor and a thicker, more satisfying texture.
Ingredients:
- One pot of a liquid-rich soup, such as chicken soup, vegetable soup, nettle soup, or garden soup
- 1 loaf dry sourdough bread, or as much dry bread as you have
Instructions:
- Prepare the soup according to its own recipe.
- While the soup cooks, break or cut the dry bread into pieces or cubes, depending on how hard and dry it is.
- Add the bread pieces to the finished soup and continue cooking over low heat for about 45 minutes.
- The bread will soften, take on a gentle tang, and turn the soup into a filling meal.
Note: This works best with sturdy sourdough bread that has dried fully, not bread that has become moldy.
