Garlic Parmesan Cheese Toast

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Greg Who Cooks

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A long ago friend taught me to make garlic toast this way and it's been my favorite way ever since. It goes well with spaghetti and meatballs, scampi, paella, and many other foods particularly spicy dishes.

Maybe everybody makes it this way, I don't know. There aren't really any quantities of ingredients involved. You just intuit it from your preferences and how many servings you want.

French bread loaf or French rolls
garlic
butter
EVOO (optional)
grated Parmesan cheese
Paprika

For bread use either French rolls sliced in half horizontally, or use a loaf of French bread and slice vertically either crosswise or diagonally. Slices should be about 3/4" to 1" thick. Sometimes I make a couple slices, or if I'm having lots of company I'll do the entire loaf.

Garlic butter: Mince as much garlic as you'll need. (I can't even imagine the concept of too much garlic.) Melt some butter or a mix of butter and EVOO in a pan, then saute the minced garlic lightly. Do NOT brown the garlic! The idea is to infuse the butter with garlic taste. Do not cook the garlic past the limp, translucent stage.

Remove the garlic butter from the stove and you can let it cool a bit, but not so much that it thickens. Dip one face of each piece of bread or roll in the garlic butter then arrange dipped pieces on a foil covered cookie sheet. I sometimes take garlic remaining in the pan and add it to the bread pieces to even the garlic coverage. Your preference shall govern how much garlic per slice.

Lightly sprinkle the bread pieces with grated Parmesan cheese. I've found that just the lightest dusting of Parmesan cheese comes out the best, but you can experiment with more if you like.

Finally, lightly sprinkle with Paprika. I often intentionally do it unevenly. The Paprika acts as a browning agent and also adds a small amount of spiciness. You can leave it off if you absolutely hate Paprika but I recommend using it.

At this point you can set it aside while the rest of your dinner cooking catches up. Leaving the bread for up to an hour on the counter might dry it out a bit but sometimes this is a good thing. Any longer than that and you should cover it with plastic wrap. (I don't recommend storage overnight. However you can proceed up to the dipping in garlic butter stage then individually wrap pieces in plastic and they'll last a few days in the refrigerator, or I've even frozen them with not too bad results. When you want to use them allow them to warm to room temperature then sprinkle with Parmesan, etc.)

Preheat your broiler.

Warning: I absolutely guarantee you will burn your garlic toast and have to throw it out if you do anything else while you're broiling them. This is a step that requires absolute undivided attention! And no, if they burn there is no way to save them, they're ruined.

Put the cookie sheet with the bread pieces under the broiler and check them frequently. They should be lightly browned when they're done. If your broiler doesn't produce even heat you may have to rearrange the pieces during cooking, do it in batches, or take out a few that are done first and finish the rest as necessary.

Wrap your finished garlic Parmesan cheese bread in aluminum foil to keep it warm and serve as quickly as possible. You can keep them warm in an oven for a short period but make sure the oven is no warmer than the bread or it will dry out. Must be served warm!

So that's my favorite garlic bread recipe. I hope everybody enjoys it! :yum:
 
Thank you GG,

The Parika is a very nice touch.
I've got a batch of Artisan Bread in the works right now.
Can that be used in place of the French rolls/ Bread?
 
You can use any kind of bread that you like. I suspect that fresh bread might not be as good as bread a few days old. The under side comes out too soft. If using fresh bread it might be better to put the slices in a warm oven for a few minutes to dry them out a bit. Each chef will have to use their own judgement here.

Honestly, I'm not sure what flavor Artisan is. I'm wondering if "Artisan" just describes the shape of the loaf. If it's just a matter of the shape of the bread then that's no big deal, just cut it into 3/4"-1" slices, then divide any pieces as necessary for serving size.

I suspect any strong tasting bread would not be good. For example I wouldn't use sour dough bread, but OTOH maybe sour dough lovers might like that. (I'm not one.)
 
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You can use any kind of bread that you like. I suspect that fresh bread might not be as good as bread a few days old. The under side comes out too soft. If using fresh bread it might be better to put the slices in a warm oven for a few minutes to dry them out a bit. Each chef will have to use their own judgement here.

Honestly, I'm not sure what flavor Artisan is. I'm wondering if "Artisan" just describes the shape of the loaf. If it's just a matter of the shape of the bread then that's no big deal, just cut it into 3/4"-1" slices, then divide any pieces as necessary for serving size.

I suspect any strong tasting bread would not be good. For example I wouldn't use sour dough bread, but OTOH maybe sour dough lovers might like that. (I'm not one.)

I think your recipe will work for what I have in mind. Taking care of 2 projects at the same time.

The recipe I'm using is the Master recipe from the book Artisian Bread in 5 minutes a day. It's just water, yeast, salt, flour. Shape it how ever I want. Other things can be added. But for now I'm keeping it simple. Round loaves.

The 2 combined would be pretty good. Especially today.
It's cold outside. Burrrr.

Munky.
 
I had garlic bread tonight with dinner. I make it very much like the recipe posted, but instead of using the broiler, I put the cookie sheet on the lower part of the oven at 400 degrees. I bake for about six minutes, then flip the bread pieces over and cook about six minutes more. They brown nicely on the bottom.
 
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