A quick little incident has thrown me and a few colleagues into conditional quarantine awaiting our results. As long as I have a whole day to me, the cravings keep getting stronger and stronger. I decided I would share with you an easy and delicious way to prepare cheesy garlic bread on a stove, with a pan, and no oven.
Depending on what kind of a stove you have, this should take just less than 15 minutes from start to finish. It is a very simple process and I can't believe I went out to eat this instead of making it myself. I guess quarantine has done me good. And a day off is always nice.
Ingredients you will need:
- Garlic.
Whole and garlic salt.
- Baguette.
I used normal baguette and parishki baguette.
- Cheese.
No, not cheese spray! Real cheese! I used Grana Padano. Although, I recommend Mozarella.
- Herbs.
I used dill, parsley, cilantro. Parsley is more than enough.
- Unsalted Butter.
You could use salted butter if you do not plan on using garlic salt and/or dills.
- Olive oil.
This is totally optional but adds to the flavor.
Process:
I used a normal baguette and a parishki baguette. The parishki baguette is a more dense and brown bread. It is also thinner and crunchier bread made from whole grain flour. It gives a more a crunchier taste and toast like consistency.
The idea is to simply slice the bread loaves in equal sizes. This helps cook them evenly at the same amount of time.
Take a little olive oil in a bowl. We will use this same bowl to make the garlic mixture for the garlic bread. This is completely optional but it does add a little extra flavor. I used 3 tablespoons of olive oil for one whole stick of butter.
I should mention that you should start letting your butter rest and melt before anything else if it is in the refrigerator. I used one whole stick of unsalted melted butter for one whole baguette.
We need it soft not watery so that we can create the garlic mixture to apply to the bread. So don't let it melt until it's liquid. Room temperature is good enough. Once it has melted, put it in the bowl with the olive oil.
I used 6-8 cloves of garlic here. You can add more or less cloves of garlic as per your desired flavor of garlic.
Smash and mince the garlic. You can achieve this in any way suitable. I personally love using the grater. Once you have that, go ahead and add it to the bowl. You can then add garlic salt to the top. I added just shy of a teaspoon of garlic salt.
Then, the herbs. Parsley is more than enough. I went ahead and added coriander and dill because I wanted to get some iron in my diet. All herbs are extremely healthy but adding dill will make it significantly saltier. If you want a smooth and nice taste, simply stick to parsley.
Mince the herbs really finely and add them to the bowl.
Now start mixing all the contents of the bowl together. Since we used melted and soft butter along with some olive oil, this should take little to no effort. The aim is to combine all the ingredients together evenly and have a very soft texture.
I honestly would recommend using Mozarella cheese. Since I didn't have any and going out to buy it isn't an option, I went with the Grana Padano which I had at home.
To make cheesy garlic bread cheese is required. If you don't want cheesy garlic bread then simply ignore anything cheese related here.
Grate the cheese in a separate bowl and leave it be. We will need this later.
Now, take the garlic paste you just made in the bowl and apply them evenly to one side of all the slices. Here you can see the parishki bread. It is tiny compared to the normal baguette. But that's not important. Simply apply the garlic butter paste to the bread like you would butter any bread.
Now we get to the fun part. Cooking!
Place your pan on a medium low heat. Keeping it medium low is important so that the bread doesn't burn and the ingredients still cook.
Butter the pan very lightly and place the slices on the pan.
Now sprinkle the grated cheese left on the side on top of each slice very generously. You know what they say about cheese, the more the merrier! I went easy on the parishki baguette because it would simply make it too salty if I added too much cheese on top.
Once you have spread enough cheese to your likings, cover the pan with a lid and let it cook. On my stove, the settings may be different from yours. I personally left the bread in the pan with the lid on for 5 minutes on medium low heat.
A good indicator is when the bottom of the slice starts getting the darker brown color and the cheese on top has melted and bubbled.
Et Voila!
Cheesy garlic bread made at home on a stovetop. I cannot believe how easy this was to make! It tasted just as delicious as at the restaurants. Since writing this post, all of us have been cleared and freed from quarantine. But this short break made me realize I am not going to have garlic bread in a restaurant again since I can now make it at home!
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