TIP OF THE DAY: Make Garlic Bread

[1] Garlic bread made on the grill with Lucero garlic olive oil. The recipe is below. (photo courtesy Lucero).

[2] Baked in the oven. Here’s the recipe from Taste Of Home.

[3] Italian garlic (photo courtesy Burpee).

Now that grilling season is on, make one of our favorite foods to come off the grill: garlic bread.

Garlic bread, also called garlic toast, is toasted baguette or sourdough, sliced and spread with olive oil or butter, and garlic*.

Additional ingredients may be added:

 
On the grill, individual slices are cooked. In the broiler, the loaf is partially sliced through, then brushed with garlic oil or garlic butter.

Our Mom, who made garlic bread often, wrapped the seasoned loaf in foil and cooked it under the broiler. It was the simplest and easiest of our favorite dishes from Mom.
 
 
GARLIC-INFUSED OIL

Using garlic-infused olive oil saves the step of rubbing the slices with a cut garlic clove (although mega-garlic lovers can do both). You can buy it or make it.

Here’s how to infuse your own olive oil.
 
 
RECIPE: GRILLED GARLIC BREAD

Alternatively, separate slices can be individually seasoned and grilled.

There’s nothing better than garlic bread grilled crisp on the grill, with grill marks providing extra appeal. The recipe couldn’t be simpler. We used Lucero Garlic Olive Oil.

Ingredients

 
It isn’t “official,” but you can also add crushed red pepper flakes.

Preparation

1. BRUSH the olive oil onto the bread. Grill it using a grilling pan at medium-High heat until golden. Flip halfway if you want grill marks on both sides.

2. REMOVE from the heat and rub a cut raw garlic clove across both sides of the slices, as they do in Italy.

3. SPRINKLE with garnishes and serve hot.
 
Broiler Or Oven Technique

Garlic bread baked in the oven.

Broiled garlic bread, with or without grated cheese.

Garlic bread is the most basic form of bruschetta, grilled, sliced bread which appeared in the written record in 15th-century Italy.

It can be traced back to ancient Rome, and doubtlessly before then when any bread-baking people needed to extend the life of stale bread [source].

Italian restaurants introduced garlic bread to Americans around 1950. It arrived in a bread basket, to much acclaim.

But who needs an Italian restaurant? It’s easy to make your own garlic bread, to serve with:

 
You may hear some people insist that garlic bread is not an authentic Italian food. It certainly is: It’s called bruschetta.

For a more substantial variation, top the cooked slices with as many extras as you wish: cheeses, meats, vegetables, whatever.

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*If you don’t have fresh garlic, you can mix garlic powder into the butter or oil.