Burnt Toast Soup With an Egg on It

There are nights when the whispered possibility of a cold cereal dinner is all too real. This is a soup for such times, when the coffers are dry and so is the bread on the counter. Modeled after Ferran Adria’s version of Spanish sopa de ajo from his book The Family Meal, this soup boasts a silky texture that belies the fact that it is essentially puréed toast. With help from pantry stars like onion, garlic, and olive oil, the soup is refined, elegant, and good enough to serve to your parents and hide the fact that your bank account is overdrawn. Garlic-spiked parsley and sunny fried eggs make for a punchy, stunning finish.

Sliced white bread will absorb a lot of oil (you’d have to add more while cooking the onion) and leave the resulting soup a little lacking in body, but it can be used if that’s all you have. My preference is skinny baguettes, the ones that inevitably turn dry not two hours after you bring them home from the store. Their high ratio of golden crust, full of caramelized proteins and sugar, to spongy interior adds even more flavor to the soup. Stay away from dark multigrain or seeded breads, which will slump into unforgiving goop.