
Over
the last few months, we had been stashing the carcasses of all the Chowdown
Farm chickens we roasted in the freezer.
They all went into the stockpot, along with a parmesan rind or two (also
archived in the freezer), and some tired carrots and celery from the back of
the fridge, an onion cut in half, a crushed clove of garlic or two, and, to
strike a different note, some fresh rosemary, thyme branches, and bay leaves
from the garden. After bringing it to a
boil and skimming it, we simmered it on low heat for a day. We then chilled it, skimmed off the fat, and
stored it in the freezer in small containers.
Chilling it makes it much easier to handle this wonderfully flavorful
stock, which turns gelatinous.
Because
we were working with a backlog of chicken carcasses, we produced more stock
than we really had room to store in the freezer. So we were faced with the happy challenge of
choosing a dish that would use some up. We
first learned about panade from Judy Rodgers’ splendid Zuni Café Cookbook. We often make one of her panade recipes at
Thanksgiving in place of stuffing. The
panade we made drew on what we learned from Rodgers and combined it with a
panade recipe from the Tartine Cookbook,
which uses milk in place of the stock.
Naturally, we were all about the chicken stock. But you can also use vegetable stock or milk
in this recipe.

It also uses a hearty bread. We prefer whole wheat levain, either from Village Bakery at the market or Acme breads at the Co-op. For cheese, we list fontina and we used the Fontina Vera Aosta from the Co-op. You can use anything that will melt and that has a flavor punch.


Fall vegetable panade
For
the panade, you need a heavy,
ovenproof pot (about 5-quart size), preferably with a lid.
3 tablespoons
olive oil
2 leeks, white
parts only, chopped
About 6 cups chicken
stock (you can also use vegetable stock or milk)
Salt
About 3/4 a
loaf of day-old country bread, in big cubes
1 small
butternut squash (about 1 pound), peeled, seeded and cut into cubes
1 bunch black
kale or Swiss chard, center stems removed
1 small head
cauliflower (about 1½ pounds), trimmed and cut into florets
½ pound
fontina cheese, thinly sliced or cubed
A little hard
cheese to grate on top?
1) Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Melt 2 tablespoons of the
oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the leeks and sauté until softened,
about 5 minutes. Add the stock and perhaps salt it lightly if it’s homemade and
you haven’t added a lot of salt. If you
are using store bought stock, don’t salt!
Bring to a boil and then remove from the heat.
2) Lightly and quickly saute the kale or chard
in a bit more oil, just to soften it.
3) Cover the bottom of the casserole with cubes of bread.
Arrange the squash cubes in an even layer on top of the bread and pour in 2
cups of the stock. Put in a layer of some of the fontina cheese. Then put in another layer of bread
cubes. Top with the kale and the rest of
the soft cheese. Arrange the cauliflower florets over the kale. Press down on
the ingredients to compress them.

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