Continuing to cheat Purgatory: baked fish with homemade bread crumbs

Ok, let's own it: we all have a cylinder of those bread crumbs: either unflavored or "Italian seasoning" varieties. We KNOW they're bad for us, we KNOW they're loaded with fake ingredients. And, let's face it again: every time we've tried the "good for you" ones, the organic bread crumbs, the holistic ones, they've tasted like, well, cardboard. Annalena has been there, but she won't be anymore.

Annalena does not pretend to be a saint, which is a good thing, because she wouldn't fool anyone. There are bad things in her kitchen. Not many, but some. That cylinder is one of them. Even though she knows she REALLY SHOULD make her own bread crumbs. And the reason that cylinder is there is that, for all of their simplicity and for all of the easy instructions for making breadcrumbs, making such that were not too much trouble, and tasted good, eluded Annalena. No longer.

Let's draw up a distinction here, ragazzi, one between fresh bread crumbs, and dry bread crumbs. I guess one could say that they're sort of like the difference between fresh and dry pasta, except that's not true. After trying, many times, to make and to use fresh bread crumbs, Annalena has given up. They simply do not do it for her. If you have a different point of view, please comment, as long as you're nice about it. Trying to make the dried ones turned out to be just that: trying. Until I figured out what I was doing wrong.

Most bread crumb "recipes" for making the dried stuff have you start with slices of stale bread. As I found out, this is a mistake. If you want to make GOOD dry bread crumbs, use only crust. I learned this when, after making the Zuni bread salad that I talked about earlier, I was left with a large pile of sesame semolina bread crusts. I always have crusts left over when I make a bread pudding, and I always plan to toast them and use them as big croutons. And I throw them out, every time. Buddha only knows what compelled me to try this this time, but I did. And it works. Here we go.

You need the crusts of a loaf of a bread that is good enough to eat as it is. Think of the principle of cooking with wine: you never cook with something you wouldn't drink. You can take the crusts off with a sharp knife. You don't have to be clinical about getting all of the crumb off of it. After you have those crusts, what you do is save them, until you've used your oven at some very high temperature: somewhere around 400 or higher. Have them ready on a baking sheet, and when you have finished baking whatever it is you're baking (or roasting), turn off the oven, and put the sheet of bread crusts in. Just leave it there for about half an hour, longer if you forget. The crusts will dry even more, and when they're cool, dump them in a food processor . If you don't have one, put them in a sturdy plastic bag, and get your rolling pan ready.

It's of course easy and fast to do this in a food processor. With the bag and rolling pin, I run the pin back and forth about a dozen times, and then I hit the broken bread, over and over, until I have the size I want - which is fairly tiny . (It's a good way to get out aggression). If you use the processor, stop every few seconds and check. Dump these out into an air and water tight container.

Or, use them right away, in this dish. Take about a cup or so of the crumbs and put them in a bowl. Melt 2-3 tablespoons of unsalted butter, and chop up about a tablespoon of your fresh herb of choice. Mix the stuff all together. Now, get a pound or so of fish fillets. I used striped bass, but use what you like. DO keep in mind, however, that the more pieces of fish you have, the more bread crumbs you will need. Something about surface area. (You can also stuff a whole fish with these goodies too). Put the fish in a buttered baking dish, sprinkle the crumbs over it, and bake at 400 for about 15 minutes per inch of fish. The crumbs will take on YET MORE toastiness, and give the fish a good flavor. If you like things a bit on the salty side, you can add some salt to the crumbs before you bake the dish. And there it is. It's not fancy, it's not complicated, but it sure is good. How about you make it this week?