Saturday 5 September 2009

Homemade Bruschetta


Homemade Bruschetta - The lazy cook's way, a non-fussy recipe with simple home ingredients.

PREP TIME 10 Min
COOK TIME 10 Min
READY IN 20 Min

SERVINGS & SCALING
Original recipe yield: Serves 2 as an appetizer.

INGREDIENTS
1 tbsp salt (or less to taste)
1 tbsp pepper
1 tbsp sugar (optional)
2 tbsp chopped basil leaves
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 large chopped tomatoes
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
Around 4 slices of white bread

DIRECTIONS
1. Ensure that you remove the seeds and juice from the tomatoes before chopping them up. There will be less excess liquid in the bruschetta mixture.
2. Mix salt, basil, pepper, garlic and the olive oil. Toss the mixture over the tomatoes and mix well. Try to refrigerate for at least half an hour in the freezer, these will allow the tomato and basil flavours to blend better.
3. Great to go on baguette loaves, but in my case, we simply use the usual bread slices (and removed the crust).
4. Spoon a moderate amount of the bruschetta mixture on the bread and toast in an oven.

TIPS
Note:

(a) There are many variations of preparing homemade bruschetta. Once can also toast the bread beforehand, and just spoon the cold bruschetta mixture on top before serving. In my case I preferred to toast the bruschetta alongside with the bread (which doesn't take long to toast anyway).

(b) I prefer not to use sugar, you can use though as it's in most traditional recipes.

(c) It will be more authentic of course if you serve your bruschetta on baguette slices instead of the squarish bread slices as I did for mine, but there is really no compromise taste wise!

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