Bread Patties With Oven Fries

Bread Patties are a wonderful way to use up leftover bread. Especially now we try to really use up our food. Old or dry bread is often thrown out. But that is over now. Never throw your bread away again, not even small pieces. Instead turn it into the most delicious patties and serve them with home made oven fries. Yummy.

Bread Patties with Oven Fries are actually 2 great recipes. And they work wonderfully together. Add a little salad and you will have a restaurant worthy meal. Your family will love it. Mine did for sure and they were a little sceptical about the Bread Patties. Now they are asking for more 🙂

For the Bread Patties you need about 100g or 3.5 oz dry bread per person.
So I save all our old bread, like my breakfast rolls. https://spoonsandscissors.com/bread-rolls/breakfast-rolls-brotchen/ As soon as it is clear, that we won’t be eating the rest of the bread, I leave it out to dry. That way it doesn’t get mouldy either.

You start with boiling some water. Then put the needed amount of dry bread in a bowl and pour the hot water over it. The water should cover the bread. Let it sit for about 5-10min depending on the size of the bread pieces.
When the bread is soft put it in a strainer and carefully press out the water. Now you a a bread mass similar to the ground meat for meat balls (at least that’s what we are trying to achive).

Now prep your veggies. Thaw and drain the spinach and dice your tomatos, onions and garlic and anything else you like to add like capers or olives.
Then add the onions and garlic to the bread in the bowl along with some salt and pepper and other spices that you might like.

Mix all the ingredients together. Personally I like to do it by hand, with gloves of course. I get a better feel for the consistency that way. Most likely your bread patty mix will still be pretty soft, meaning there is a too much liquid in it. We’ll fix that with my Oma’s way when she made meat balls: add a handful or two of oats. You can use normal oats or quick oats, both work. They will soak up any extra liquid.

When the bread patty mix has the right consistency, add the tomatos and spinach. As tomatos contain quite a bit of liquid you might want to drain them first. Again, if there is too much liquid in the mix use Oma’s trick.

Now mix everything together. Since there is no egg in it (yet) you can taste the mix for the spicing. My Oma always said to spice heartily otherwise the patties taste weak. Of course she was talking about her German meat balls, but this is kind of the same thing. Oma also liked to add a couple of tablespoons of mustard to the mix. If you like mustard do try it out. It’s really good.

Finally it’s frying time. Heat up your pan with a little oil of your choice. Now fry the patties just like they are meat patties. They will not harden as much though and break apart more easily. If you prefer your patties to have a tighter consistency, you can add one or two eggs to the bread patty mix and then fry them. We have tried both and like them equally well.

Here you can see the result of both ways. Left with, right without egg.

• 

• 

Jump to Recipe

And now comes the easy part: Oven Fries. They are so good and not heavy with oil. With a little trick you make them crunchy, too.
I use approx. 125g or 4.5 oz of potatoes per person.

Peel the potatoes and cut them into thick slices and then into strips. Now they already look like french fries. Put all potato strips into a big container with a lid and add salt, pepper, paprika (dried ground bell pepper) and – the secret ingredient for the crunchyness – polenta. Lastly you add 1tbs of oil per portion, close the lid and shake it all up. Whohoo. All potatoes are covered evenly.

Now bake the fries for 10-15 min, depending on the amount. The oven fries will harden up a bit once out of the oven, so don’t leave them in for too long. Been there done that.

Now put the fries and the patties onto plates, add some lettuce or salad and enjoy!