Chicken and Spinach Strata (Bread Bake)

1. This recipe works well with stale or fresh bread. If you use stale bread, you must put it aside for 30 minutes before baking to give the egg mixture a chance to seep into the bread. If you use (reasonably) fresh bread then baking it straight away is ok (but still preferable to set aside for a while).

2. Bread comes in all sizes so it is a bit hard to measure exactly how much you need. Basically you need 2 x enough to cover the base of a square baking dish approximately 25cm x 25cm (10 " x 10") (i.e. one for bottom layer, one for top)

3. You can substitute the frozen spinach with fresh spinach. Shred, then pan fry briefly to remove liquid before layering.

4. If you use bacon instead of chicken, dice it then fry it first before layering. And halve the amount of salt in the Egg Mixture.

5. If you use mozzarella cheese you will need to increase the salt by 1/4 tsp (because it is not salty).

6. You can make 4 individual servings rather than 1 big one. Use 1 1/2 to 2 cup capacity ramekins. They will bake in 15 minutes.

7. This is not an overnight version. If you want to make this the day before, add 1 egg and 1/4 cup of milk, otherwise it will be too dry.

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