C is for Croutons
Mom always said I’m a bread eater. Julie’s mom says the same thing. But Julie isn’t a bread eater.
French baguettes are delicious, and I believe also low in fat. For this reason, they are only good for one day. And for all the above reasons, we tend to accumulate a lot of half-finished stale bread loaves.
Yes, I know you can order a demi-pain but don’t talk back. This isn’t about good planning, it’s about making lemonade. Or rather, croutons.
It’s not hard to find a good crouton recipe, but I find it rather tricky to make good croutons. Too much oil, too much heat, too little this-or-that, and you’ll just have soggy, burnt, yet stale, chunks of bleh. In fact, I can’t really describe my process for crouton making, as it seems always to be different each time. Nichtdestotrotz, here goes anyway.
I prefer baguettes from a good bakery. The ones from the supermarket will work too. But even while the ones from the supermarket look pretty good, you’ll notice the texture of the mie is very homogenous and when dried much like styrofoam.
The loaves are best really good and stale. Like, several days sitting out stale.
Rubbing a clove of garlic on the outside of the load before cutting it up is easier than afterwards. And should any of this garlic juice survive the heat of the pan later, you’ll get that nice radishy hotness long for the ride.
Make cubes out of your loaf with a serrated breadknife. Take your time and saw, not too much pressure.
Cubes that fall on the floor go to the floor god. What, you wanna get a tapeworm?
I don’t use the oven method. Too easy to burn em.
Some diced garlic is gently heated with some butter, and this is tossed with the cubes.
The cubes are heated in the same pan on medium heat. A little more butter is added when no one is looking. This takes a while, depending on how much bread you have and how small your pan.
When are they sauteed enough? Hell if I know. Some of them get a little brown on one side — the cubes will resist turning over — and some will look exactly the same.
Somewhere along the way everything gets a little salt.
The cubes are stored in an airtight container. I suspect they are better the second day. They keep a long time.
You’ll know if it worked out because you’ll notice serving them with everything. I mean, everything. Also, the roof of the mouth tends to suffer a bit.