Crostini Bread Recipe

Run out of plates or just looking for an easy bite? Let’s try this Italian Crostini that will make any gathering divine!

Nowadays when we are a tap away from all the goods Earth’s commercial power can provide, it’s hard to imagine that there were times a little while ago when it was far more difficult to source materials for ourselves.

There are still some among us today who remember of times when we didn’t have Internet and we had to rely on word of mouth, advertisements and specialized magazines to acquire necessary knowledge to base our purchase decisions on.

But not so long ago, there were times when even basic goods like cooking gears, cutlery or plates were a sign of status and were only available for the more well to do. It’s not like making earthenware was such a big deal that anyone couldn’t make one for themselves but since sharing knowledge wasn’t the main principles of those times, people were left with endless waiting lists and high prices for basically anything requiring some sort of skill.

Sure, we can still do the same thing today and pay people to do jobs that we aren’t skilled at, but our options can spread out onto much wider plans than it was allowed to our ancestors who could only thought of using pieces of dried bread to spoon up their food when neither spoon nor plates were available for them.

Sure, it’s a step above of eating spaghetti with bare hands but still, no wonder plague was spreading across medieval Europe when people ate food sharing only the pot where the food was prepared, without washing their hands.

Crostini was invented as a way of serving food at occasions where plates and cutlery wasn’t in abundance.

Nowadays, we haven’t steered much from the direction set for us by our ancestors, but adjusted to the modern requirements, many times we also carry around individual plates to shuttle around the unfinished bites of our prey.

Crostini means “little crusts” in Italian. If we have time inspecting these little crusty and crackling pieces of bread between picking them up from the plates and fairly quickly placing them into our mouth without cutting a dash, we may come to the conclusion that the name is a rather well-placed one.

Crostini is a small piece of bread, baked or rather just roasted in the oven removing most of the remaining moisture what’s been left there by the baking process. The difference between Crostini and Bruschetta is that the latter is just toasted bread with soft interior and crunchy exterior while the former is dried out to be crunchy through and through.

The remaining parts of the recipe is where our creativity is let out to shine, besides of course, the dripping rivers of olive oil, since the dish being Mediterranean. Toppings can be identical, both for Bruschetta and Crostini, yet the end results will be marginally different, due to the textural differences of the base.

It doesn’t matter what topping we choose to include, as there aren’t toppings that won’t fly on a piece of crunchy bread but if we don’t want to seem out of place, make sure there are enough plates.

Ingredients

Fresh loaf of Italian or French bread/baguette
Olive oil
Topping of choice
- Jamon serrano
- Guacamole
- Tomato
- Cheese
- Salsa verde
- Anything edible

How to make Crostini

Slice the bread or baguette up. Although it’s recommended to use fresh french baguette or fresh Italian bread, given that the Crostini’s history any bread would do.
Place the slices onto the middle wire rack under a highest set temperature broiler in the oven. Toast until golden brown spots/lines start to appear around the edges or randomly on top.
Flip the slices over then keep toasting until golden brown spots start to overwhelm the bread.
Check the other side and flip the Crostini slices again if necessary to achieve the same golden brown color on both sides. This method yields slightly softer textured Crostini slices, for harder pieces use more time with bottom and top heater turned on at lower temperature about 400°F / 200°C.
Let them cool off a bit then top them up with whatever ingredients we have at hand.