Proper Garlic Bread

Ingredients

• 1 baguette or ciabatta
• 120 g soft butter
• 5 garlic cloves
• a big handful of parsley, finely chopped
• 40 g parmesan, grated (optional)
• sea salt flakes

Method

1. Paste the garlic

   Crush the garlic with a pinch of salt and work it to a smooth paste with the side of a knife. Chopped garlic leaves hot raw nuggets in the butter; a paste distributes through every bite.

2. Make the butter

   Beat the garlic paste into the soft butter with the parsley, parmesan and salt. The butter must be genuinely soft — melted butter separates and runs straight out of the bread in the oven.

3. Cut most of the way through

   Slice the loaf at 2 cm intervals without going all the way through the base, so it stays in one piece, and push butter into every cut.

4. Bake wrapped, then open

   Wrap in foil and bake at 200°C for 12 minutes so the inside steams and the butter soaks in, then open the foil out and give it 6 more to crisp the top. Baked open the whole time, the middle stays dry.

   18 min

5. Serve immediately

   It is at its best within about five minutes. Left to sit, the butter cools and the crust softens.