Fried Eggs in Bread Crumbs

I live in New York City. Good bread is one block away. GREAT bread is five blocks away. The place where I get sandwiches for lunch uses bread from Jim Lahey's Sullivan Street Bakery. For goodness sake, I can GO to Sullivan Street Bakery.

On my way out of town on Friday nights, I stop at the 131st Street Fairway to shop. I usually buy a loaf of Bread Alone's Whole Grain Health Bread made with organic ingredients, and I eat a piece as part of Sunday morning breakfast - two slices streaky bacon, one poached egg, and a slice of toast




buttered and spread with Swedish orange and elderflower marmalade from Ikea.




So in 2006 when Mark Bittman wrote his article in the New York Times about Jim Lahey's No-Knead Bread, I read it, emailed it to myself, and put it in my Recipes to Try folder. I wanted to make it, but it wasn't urgent. It was just there waiting for when I got around to it.

What was I thinking?



That is a picture of the loaf of bread I made last Sunday. Did you hear me? A loaf of bread I made following Jim Lahey's specific instructions in My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method.

It's especially thrilling because not only was it fantastic, now when I'm in the country for more than three days, I don't have to rely on bread I have stowed away in the freezer. In about one minute flat, I can put together ingredients that will rise for 12 to 18 hours in a bowl, then be turned onto a towel to rise for two hours more,




get plopped in the oven, and 45 minutes later emerge as a glorious golden/brown loaf with a serious crust.

When I tasted the first piece of my own bread, I knew The Zuni Cafe Cookbook recipe Kate at Savour-Fare turned me on to would be my next recipe.

And it was.

Fried Eggs in Bread Crumbs









I gilded the lily and put the egg with the bread crumbs over Spaghettini Aglio Olio. Since the linguine had garlic and parsley in it, I didn't use the optional thyme, marjoram, or rosemary. For the same reason, I also eliminated the balsamic vinegar step, but it sure does sound good.

An Egg Fried in Bread Crumbs over Spaghettini Aglio Olio with Escarole Salad

Silvano Slept Through the Whole Thing

ADDENDUM
February 27, 2018

I don't live in NYC anymore, and I make Jim Lahey's Basic No-Knead Bread from My Bread  on a regular basis. He  started a bread revolution with that book, inspiring a lot of home cooks to become regular, dedicated bread bakers. 

I have learned how to change the size of the bread I am making by calculating any bread recipe starting with flour as 100 percent. 

In the case of Jim Lahey's No Knead Bread, this means salt is 2 per cent, instant yeast is .25 per cent, and cool water is 75%. I usually make a Jim Lahey loaf using 600 g bread flour, 12 or 13 g kosher salt, 1.5 g yeast, and 450 g water to bake in an Emile Henry pot called The Long Baker, which I got from King Arthur Flour.

When I don't have the time to let the Lahey bread rise for 12 to 18 hours, I use a recipe for sandwich bread from FOOD52 for their version of No-Knead Sandwich Bread, which I like very much. When I use that recipe in The Long Baker, my adaptation is 267 g bread flour, 266 grams all-purpose flour, 9 grams kosher salt, 5 grams instant yeast, and 437 grams of cool water.

I use King Arthur Organic Flours.

I tried using an electric knife to slice bread, but I found that with a crusty loaf, I like to slice loaves by hand using a Mercer Culinary Millennia 10-inch Wide Bread knife, which was at the top of the pack when Cook's Illustrated tested serrated knifes in July of 2016.  

Jim Lahey Bread Baked in The Long Baker

FOOD52 No-Knead Sandwich Bread Baked in The Long Baker