I love bread sauce with my Christmas dinner, but many recipes are wasteful and outdated. Most call for fresh white breadcrumbs, made without the crusts, as well as a clove-studded onion that’s infused with milk and then thrown in the bin. Why, I have no clue. Save time and waste, and embrace the beige: use brown bread, keep the crusts on (even bread ends work here) and add a little grated onion instead of using and chucking a whole one. Your brown bread sauce will be more nutritious and flavourful for it. Even if you’re a staunch traditionalist and insist on using a whole onion, after lifting it from the milk, remove the cloves, cut the onion in half and roast it alongside your other Christmas veg, or use it as a trivet on which to roast the meat (at the very least it will give your gravy a great head start), or save it and put in a Boxing Day stew.
