Tuesday, September 01, 2015

This week's MENU recipe. Flavoured Croutons

Flavoured Croutons     It is still soup weather, although spring is showing us its lovely face now and then. Lynne has made a huge pot of pea, lentil, vegetable and ham hock soup for tonight and we will have some croutons to accompany this for texture. You can buy croutons quite easily in supermarkets nowadays, but just a few for the price of two whole loaves of bread. It is incredibly easy to make them yourself and they can be stored in a lock-seal container for quite a long time. A perfect way to use up stale bread, but you can, if pushed, use fresh bread too. White, brown or rye, whichever kind of bread you like, all can be turned into croutons. Save the ends of your hard cheeses and use them grated on top. Or just use parmesan or your favourite....
4 slices of bread - canola or olive oil, you can also use a flavoured oil, like chilli, herb, garlic or even truffle - salt - pepper - a seasoning, barbeque or herb salt mix - fresh chopped garlic - - fresh chopped herbs - grated cheese - cayenne pepper for a hit of heat
Heat your oven to 200 ⁰C. Cut the bread into cubes about 2 to 3 cm square. Spread these on a lined baking tray and sprinkle them lightly with oil. Season and sprinkle over any of the above flavours you like, NOT all at once though. You could match them to the dish you are serving. Cover with a fine grating of cheese and pop into the oven until they are nice and golden brown. Turn them once if the bases need colour. Turn off the oven, leave the door ajar and let them cool and crisp there.

You can also turn these into flavoured breadcrumbs for coating fish or meat or for sprinkling onto dishes to add texture. 
© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2015

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