Home-made croutons

December 29, 12:10 PMFood ExaminerEric Burkett

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Hold on there. Those aren't store-bought croutons,
are they?

You’ve made a beautiful salad, filled with fresh, crisp, seasonal ingredients, and you’ve prepared a tangy homemade vinaigrette – with just a hint of sweetness – to go along with it. Now you need just one more thing to top it off. In a moment of excitement and anticipation, you open your cupboard door and – voila! – you pull out the plastic bag of croutons you bought at [insert name of giant grocery store chain here].

Let’s face it: you blew it. Store-bought croutons almost always have about as much personality and flavor as the plastic wrapper in which they’re contained and add nothing to the salad. The answer, of course, is to make them yourself. You’ll need a couple of tools to do this right: a very large mixing bowl and a food-safe spray bottle to hold your olive oil.

1 loaf of stale bread, preferably unsliced. Simple bread, such as whole wheat, sourdough, or white, works best here.
1 head of garlic, peeled and minced (Toss the peeled cloves into a food processor; it’s easier)
1 heaping tablespoon herbes de Provence
¼ - ½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
3 tablespoons of a mixture of kosher salt and fresh ground pepper

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
   
• Trim the crusts from the loaf (Many of the recipes I make call for bread crumbs: after a quick trip through the food processor, that’s where the leftover crusts go), and then cut the bread into cubes about ½ to ¾ inches. Put them into large mixing bowl.
• Mix garlic, dried herbs, and salt and pepper together in a separate bowl.
• Spray the bread cubes with the olive oil, tossing them continually as you do so. You want an even layer of oil over all the cubes. If you don’t have a spray bottle, slowly drizzle the olive oil down the sides of the bowl, tossing the cubes until they’re all coated with oil.
• Sprinkle herb/garlic mixture over the cubes, tossing them gently until they’re evenly coated.
• Spread bread cubes in a single layer over one or more large baking sheets.
• Sprinkle Parmesan over the cubes so that every cube gets a bit of the cheese.
• Bake for about 15 to 20 minutes, or until cubes are evenly browned and dried, stirring and turning them occasionally to prevent scorching.
• After they’ve cooled completely, and I do mean completely, store them in an airtight container. These will keep for at least a week, but don’t store them in the refrigerator. They’ll absorb moisture and lose their crunch.