You have got to love and have passion for food and cooking to not mind spending much of your life in the kitchen; including the many hours spent browsing through books and magazines for the perfect recipe, and time taken to shop for ingredients, picking out the best and the freshest. And let’s not forget, cleaning the kitchen messes: endless dirty pots and pans. But of course you don’t mind! Why else would you bother, if you didn’t love food and cooking?
This recipe is Jacques Pepin’s, taken from the book “Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home,” recipe titled “Seafood Bread” (page 138).
Note: Slight alterations have been made for the sake of personal taste, but the integrity of the recipe remains intact.
Cook with heart; eat with gusto. Buen Provecho!
This recipe makes 6 servings
Steps 1 (hollowing bread):
(Fresh Sourdough bread can be purchased at your local San Jose Le Boulanger)
1 large crusty country bread (1½ pounds), round or oval (or smaller sizes equivalent to required amounts, for the purpose of stuffing with seafood)
With a bread knife slice off the top crust of the bread and remove it as you would a lid. Make a straight wall inside the loaf, slicing down, about 1/2-inch in from the crust, and cutting all around the interior (careful not to pierce the bottom of bread). Remove all the soft bread inside to make a hollow shell; temporarily set shell aside.
Place the loose bread in a food processor and pulse to a medium-fine crumb. Reserve the bread crumbs for using in Steps 3.
Steps 2 (herb butter):
7 garlic cloves
2/3 cup fresh dill, [measured] loosely packed
1/4 cup slivered almonds
1/4 cup pecan halves
1½ sticks butter, softened at room temperature
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 cup dry cream sherry
Put all the ingredients (save the bread bowls) in the food processor, pulse about 5 times, and then process for a few seconds, until the whole thing is a smooth paste. Spread herb butter inside bowl(s), covering bottom and sides entirely; set aside.
Steps 3 (filling):
(Fresh seafood can be purchased at Race Street Fish & Poultry in San Jose)
Preheat oven to 400 degrees
1/2 pound sea scallops, cut in half
1/2 pound salmon, cut into 1-inch chunks
1/2 pound halibut, cut into 1-inch chunks
1/2 pound shrimp, cut into 1-inch chunks
1/4 pound mushrooms, roughly chopped (1½ cups)
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 dry white wine
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
2 cups reserved bread crumbs
1/2 pound lump crab, picked-over for shells (optional)
Reserved bread crumbs
Extra-virgin olive oil (or olive oil spray)
In a bowl place all the seafood and ingredients (save the crab) on Steps 3 list, and gently toss to combine well. Distribute the seafood filling in the bowl(s) evenly. If using crab, make this your second layer, dividing evenly. Over the crab put a layer of the reserved bread crumbs, drizzle (or spray) with olive oil. Put the loaf (loaves) on a baking sheet, place in center of oven, immediately turn the heat down to 375 degrees, and bake for 35 minutes to 1 hour, depending on size bread used, or until the bread-crumb topping is nicely golden (“deeply colored”).
Let it rest on a breadboard for about 10 minutes before cutting.
