If you don’t love the bubbly wonderfulness of piping hot garlic cheese bread, write this date on your calendar. Because that’s all about to change.
Here’s what you need:
Butter. One stick. Softened.
Mayonnaise. Real mayonnaise. NOT the demonic Miracle Whip or any of those peculiar low-fat or fat-free varieties.
Garlic.
Cheddar cheese. Monterey Jack cheese. Parmesan cheese. Yum.
A loaf of French bread. You MUST use really high quality bread from your local artisan bakery or this recipe will be ruined.
Just kidding! This is Earthgrains brown-and-serve from the grocery aisle.
Begin by grating the cheese. I regret to inform you that grating cheese by hand yields a far superior result than if you buy the stuff in the bag.
Peel the garlic by banging it with a can, then peeling off the outer papery skin.
Then finely mince the garlic. This isn’t fine enough.
This is fine enough.
Grab four green onions. I do two at a time.
Lop off the tops, then slice them just until you get into the dark green area.
Then go over the slices with the knife to mince them up finely.
Now dump 1/2 cup mayonnaise into a mixing bowl.
Add the cheese. About 1 1/2 cups total.
The minced green onions…
And the Parmesan. About 1/2 cup.
Stir it all together. You can add a dash of salt if you like, but the cheeses are usually salty enough.
Set this mixture aside, or better yet: Make it several hours beforehand and store it in the fridge. The flavors fall in love, get married, and have many, many children.
When you’re ready to make the bread, preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Split a French loaf in half lengthwise.
Then cut each half….in half!
Also, just to make it easy, divide the garlic into four small piles.
For each fourth, melt 1/4 stick (2 tablespoons) butter in a skillet over medium-low heat. Add in 1/4 of your garlic.
Stir a little, just to get the garlic and the butter acquainted.
Place one of the four pieces of bread face down on the garlic butter. Swirl it around so the butter will soak into the bread and the garlic will press into the surface.
Repeat with each piece of bread, adding another 2 tablespoons of butter and more minced garlic with each piece.
*Important: be sure to remove all traces of garlic from the pan before adding the next round or you’ll have a bunch of tiny charred garlic pieces in the pan.
You basically want to lightly grill the bread in the skillet—this isn’t quite there yet. You want the surface to have begun to get a little crispy and golden. But you have to watch it, too! Don’t let the garlic burn and turn black. Delicate balance. If the garlic seems to be turning brown too quickly (stove heat and the pan you use can vary the results), just discard the garlic before you soak the bread in the butter—it’ll still have a strong garlic flavor!
By the way, you can omit the garlic from this recipe if you don’t tolerate it well.
When all the pieces are toasted, spread 1/4 of the cheese mixture on each piece.
Then just pop the pan into the oven for about 10 minutes, or until the cheese is nice and bubbly!
Like this. And actually, I turned on the broiler at the very end to get the top really bubbly…and I walked off and forgot about it, OF COURSE. It’s almost a little too brown for me.
Not that that will stop me from eating it.
Serve the mini-loaves on a cutting board at the dinner table, or just cut them into small slices beforehand.
My sister-in-law Missy gave me this blade for Christmas. It makes me feel powerful and a little bit tough.
Thank you, Missy.
This bread just makes me feel happy.
It’ll make you happy, too!
And that makes me happy all over again.
