The Fascist Foodie: Croutons. So much more than garnish.

Sometimes it’s the simplest thing that makes all the difference in the world. The barista getting your latte just right. Finding the bag of crackers you’ve bought has perfectly toasted edges on every single one (happened to me recently, and my toes are still wiggling). A plate of French fries served to just your particular liking (I like ‘em crispy, FYI).

A couple years ago while out with friends we’d ordered a large Caesar salad to share around the table. Don’t get me wrong, the salad itself was lovely, but it was the croutons which stole the show. Perfectly golden (hm, seems I have a toasting fetish), crisp on the outside with a delightful squish of chewiness inside (insert Duncan Hines “Crispy Chewy” jingle here). This became a long-standing staple of our visits to this particular venue.

Recently we returned to the restaurant, ordered the salad, casting glances to one another and whispering “Ooooooooh, the crooooutons!” Salad arrived. The croutons looked…different, somehow.

The croutons tasted different, somehow.

Somehow, the croutons were different.

And not as good.

So yes, the task fell to myself to replicate the celebrated croutons of yore.

God may be in the details, but a wicked crouton is all in the bread. After much experimenting (okay, so I only did it twice) I found that using stale bread, as most recipes advise, actually produced a less than perfect crouton.

Start out with a good loaf of bread, or even some buns. Don’t go for one of those grocery store loaves of French bread which have a consistency closer to cotton candy than bread. Get a good, dense, crusty loaf. Even though you’ll most likely be cutting the crusts off, I have a theory that there’s some sort of genius that takes place in the baking of the bread. If it’s got a good crust then it’s most likely sealed in a bunch of the moisture which would be otherwise evaporated in the cooling of the bread. Seems to make sense. Right…?

My best results were with a trio of Portuguese buns which I’d cut the crusts off of. They were only a day old, and I repeated the recipe with the same buns a day later, but they’d already lost too much moisture. The latter batch were unappealing, explode-in-your-mouth, shards of dessicated shrapnel. Oh, they were tasty shrapnel, for sure, but texture is everything.

This makes enough for one large salad, with some extras left over for munching on whenever you walk through the kitchen.

Croutons

3 Portuguese buns, crusts off and cubed, or enough bread to equal about 3 cups cubes
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp butter
Salt and pepper

*Note the tea towel handwoven by my cousin. Jealous? Yeah y'are.

Preheat over to 400°

In a large skillet, or even a deep pot (I use my wok) melt the butter in the olive oil over med-high heat.

When butter is melted, add the garlic and fry gently for a minute or so.

Add a pinch of pepper, stir in, then tumble the cubes of bread into the pan, quickly stirring and tossing to coat evenly. You’ll probably notice that it’s almost impossible to get the oil mixture on everything, but that’s fine. When you bake them in the oven it will allow the bread more time to distribute the oil throughout.

Next, adjust seasoning, tosstosstoss, then dump the oil-coated bread onto a baking sheet. Use a couple cubes of bread to wipe the skillet/pot/wok/whatever clean of any remaining oil and garlic.

Set the sheet on the middle rack of your preheated oven for 8-10 minutes. About half way through the baking time give them a quick toss/sheet-shake to allow even browning, and oil absorption.

When handsomely bronzed, remove from the oven, and drain on paper towel to remove any excess surface oil.