Italian Crostini quick and easy
Italian crostini is a round bread toast. The bread is sliced and then toasted in an oven, and often garnished with various different toppings. Crostini is viewed by some as a mild garlic toast. It is an ideal accompaniment to antipasto, salads, and thick soups. It is sometimes served as an hors d’oeuvre for the main course. You can easily make this Italian toast yourself in just a few minutes. It is quick and easy to make, and remarkably
good tasting especially if you use fresh ingredients.
Use a fresh baked French baguette loaf of bread, Italian bread loaf, or even a sourdough fresh baked loaf. Cut the loaf of bread into half inch thick slices. Using a basting brush, brush both sides of each bread slice lightly with extra-virgin olive oil. Preheat the oven to 375°. Use a large baking sheet and arrange bread slices in a single layer. Toast until golden brown. You will need to turn the bread slices over so that they are equally crisp about 2 1/2 to three minutes for each side. Take care not ot burn the crostini. While the bread is still warm, rub one side of each slice with baked garlic clove. ( A baked garlic clove has the consistency of a paste). If you dont want to use baked garlic cloves, you can peel 3 fresh garlic cloves, press them through a garlic press, and saute the pressed garlic for about 2 minutes in a pan on low heat. Use about 2 tablespoons of olive oil to saute the garlic.
There are numerous toppings that you can use depending upon your personal taste. You can use a vegetable peeler and thin slice Parmesan cheese and then drizzle the toast and cheese with a fine quality olive oil. Mushrooms that have been thin sliced and marinated in a vinaigrette dressing can also be used as a topping. Any pickled olives such as Kalamata olives can also be diced and added to a crostini topping. A mixture of diced, red ripe tomatoes, fresh minced basil leaves, and mozzarella cheese are also popular as a crostini topping. Numerous other herbs can also be added fresh rosemary, sea salt, fresh ground black peppercorns also make fine editions.
Any number of mild cheeses can be grated, sprinkled over the toast. Melt the cheese by placing the baking pan back in the oven for a minute or two. Serve while hot.
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