Butternut Squash Bread Casserole | Panade

What attracts me most about the dish is the seasonal squash. David Lebovitz says: “this panade is one of the few dishes I’ve eaten in my life that I’ve never forgotten,” That took place in the kitchen of Chez Panisse. I’ll take notice. Slices of toasted sourdough bread soaked in flavorful broth with lots of herbs and layers of hearty butternut squash holding everything together. What not to like? Moreover, I get to bake more bread, especially sturdy rye sourdough bread. With a few loaves of dense rye bread and a big butternut squash on hand and a whole afternoon to spare, I’m ready to make the butternut squash bread casserole.

I call this a casserole, instead of soup, because mine turns out dry. It defies the imagination to call it a soup, as David calls it. May be the baking dish I use is way too big. And there is not enough liquid to soak up three layers of bread (2 lb) and two layers of squash (2 lb).

A right size baking dish is important; but I don’t know what that is without further experimentation. Thinking about it, the top layer of bread crumbs may provide the texture and retain the moisture better than a layer of bread would. Three layers of dense rye sourdough bread is an overkill. That’d be the adjustments I’d have to make to get it right.

There is quite a lot of slicing and dicing to prep the ingredients. I took out the mandoline for the task. Cutting up two pounds of butternut squash to 1/8-inch slices is not a trivial matter in a home kitchen. Making a soup, on the other hand, all you need is tossing in the roughly chopped vegetables. It is much easier. To make a hybrid like the panade, I can’t quite wrap my arms around it. Perhaps it needs a better execution plan to get the most out of this multi-layered and uncommon dish.

Rye sourdough bread with seeds