Thursday 2 August 2012

Easy Toasted Garlic Bread

Yes. That is it. A simple easy garlic bread recipe that you can make with any bread loaf in your pantry and escape that last minute rush to the supermarket for the ready-made ones, when you are just about to sit down and enjoy a big bowl of hot soup. Oh! But that is if you have butter, parsley and garlic at home or at least at your neighbour's and you can borrow it. Otherwise, the drive to the supermarket still looks inevitable. But, won't it be nice to make some garlic bread at home, adjusting the amount of butter, garlic, herbs and salt and grill or bake it to your liking than being forced to eat what the supermarket has to offer you.

Garlic bread is usually made with baguette (long thin loaf of French bread), ciabatta (a broad flat Italian bread) or focaccia (a flat pizza like bread). Here, I have used ciabatta (but any bread of your choice will do) and grilled it in the oven for a few minutes to get a toasted, crispy bread. The alternate will be to cover the bread in aluminium foil and bake in the oven for 15 minutes.


Makes: 4 thick slices
Preparation Time: 2 minutes
Cooking Time: 2 - 3 minutes (grilling)/ 15 minutes (baking)

Ingredients
  • 4 slices of ciabatta, 1 inch thick
  • 1 1/2 tbsp freshly chopped parsley
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 2 tbsp salted butter, softened
  • 2 - 3 cloves of garlic, crushed and minced (adjust to taste)
Method
1. Pre-heat fan-forced oven to 175° C. Mix parsley, oil, butter and garlic in a bowl. Spread this on both the white sides of each bread slice. Place in a baking pan and bake in the oven for 10 minutes. Take out the pan. Now change oven to grill. When grill is hot, return baking pan with bread slices to oven on the highest rack. Grill for 2 - 3 minutes, flipping the slices half-way through grilling, till the bread begins to toast. Keep a close eye while grilling or the bread can get burnt easily.

Serve toasted garlic bread with any soup of your choice or by itself.



Variation: After spreading butter mixture on the bread slices, stack them together and cover with aluminium foil. Bake in pre-heated oven at 175° C for 15 minutes.This will give you a soft garlic bread.

2 comments:

  1. Jannet ,tht looks so appealing.. how about cooking it on a pan? Instead of oven-grill-oven..

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    Replies
    1. Yes Anu. You could do that. But the crust formed will be slightly different to grilling and also the parsley got burnt by the time a beautiful crust was formed. Which is the only reason I preferred the grilling method.

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