Crispy Croutons with Green Onion in the Microwave

Name: Crispy Croutons with Green Onion in the Microwave
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 30 min
Yield: 6
Cuisine: European
Ingredients: White loaf (baton) 1 loaf; Dried herbs or dried green onion to taste; Rock salt to taste; Olive oil 30-40 ml

I made some excellent croutons with green onion. Each of us surely has plenty of friends and acquaintances who regularly “help” us live. Not that they get in the way – rather, with the best of intentions, they try to make you do something useful just when you feel like having a beer, taking a nap and generally being lazy.

Remember Isaac Babel, the classic of the Odessa story, and his immortal play “Sunset”? A colourful Odessan, Monsieur Boyarsky, owner of the ready-made clothing firm “Chef-d'oeuvre”, used to say: …in our Odessa … there are good friends who are willing to eat you with your clothes on and without salt… That's about right!

Just recently a friend of mine first coaxed, then begged, then argued me into making crispy croutons to go with beer. The recipe had to be simple, easy to repeat and, of course, very tasty. All this even though he doesn't drink beer – and neither do I, for that matter. Well, maybe the alcohol-free kind. Not long ago, for old times' sake, I made rye croutons with garlic, the way we did in our youth, in the days of total shortages. Back then, though, we rarely had a crunchy snack with beer – there was plenty of taranka, dried salted fish.

Rye croutons with garlic are a classic of the genre. It's hard to think of a reason why anyone wouldn't eat them, or of a way to spoil them. Except by forgetting them in the oven. And, as experience shows, beer is not required – they'll get eaten anyway.

Going through the feedback on the rye croutons made me realise that, first, proper rye bread isn't always to hand, and the familiar Borodinsky or scalded rye loaf isn't quite the thing. Someone suggested making crispy croutons from white bread or a white loaf – no problem there, it's easy to find. Second, strangely enough, the oven turned out to be a difficulty for some people. I understand them. There was a time when the need to use the oven sent me into a panic.

Going over the white-bread croutons I'd tried, I somehow couldn't say for sure which ones I liked. Almost always, though, shop-bought croutons had too much salt and some kind of artificial flavouring. And the salt does need a careful hand.

Ingredients

6 servings

White loaf (baton) 1 loaf
Dried herbs or dried green onion to taste
Rock salt to taste
Olive oil 30-40 ml

Step-by-step recipe

The right bread for croutons is an ordinary baton – the white loaf familiar from childhood: long, oval in cross-section, with diagonal slashes across the top. Notably, a slightly stale loaf works even better than a perfectly fresh one – it crumbles less.
I've already been worn out by the question – how can you flavour crispy croutons with green onion? Let me try to explain. You can't! Fresh green onion is a poor fit for croutons. What you need is dried green onion. Sachets of dried green onion are sold in almost any supermarket. By the way, it's exactly the right seasoning for a good chicken or vegetable soup. Dried green onion gives soup a delicate, pleasant aroma. It also goes into practically every spice blend – which I can't stand, so I make my crunchy snack myself, to my own taste.
Grinding dried green onion in a mortar is very hard. It's thin and slippery, so the pestle just stirs it around. But add a little rock salt to act as an abrasive and everything works as it should. Combine 1 tsp rock salt and 2 tsp dried green onion in a mortar. Grind it all to dust. Surprisingly, that takes just 3-4 turns of the pestle. How much of the mixture to use for the croutons from one loaf is strictly up to you.
Slice the loaf thinly. Loaves are often sold ready-sliced, which makes the job much easier. Cut off the crust with a sharp knife – you don't need it.
Then, with the same knife, cut the slices into cubes, sticks or squares. Diamonds are especially fun.
Next, lay enough bread pieces in a deep bowl to cover the bottom and sprinkle with a little of the salt and green onion mixture. Toss. Add another layer of pieces, sprinkle with the mixture and toss again. Carry on until all the bread is seasoned. Keep tossing gently with a spoon or your hands, adding more of the mixture if needed. You can taste as you go, by the way. Don't be shy, but don't overdo it either.
Now for an important step. The croutons need a little vegetable oil, preferably olive. Since bread soaks up oil so readily, simply pouring it over and stirring won't work.
Do it like this: pour 1 tsp oil onto the bottom of a wide baking dish or a large frying pan, add the bread pieces and start tossing with a fork. As soon as the oil is absorbed, add another 1 tsp. But – mind – pour it onto the bottom of the dish, not onto the bread. And toss again. Work in 1.5-2 tbsp oil this way. You don't need much.
That's all the preparation done.
This time we'll dry the croutons in the microwave rather than the oven. As it turns out, it's several times faster and much easier to control.
An ordinary household microwave. Grill, convection and other “improvements” aren't needed. To be honest, I've never used them.
Put a wide microwave-safe dish, ideally one with high sides, into the microwave. Set it to full power.
Now start heating the bread. In stages. Looking ahead, I'll say this: I never imagined a two-day-old loaf held so much moisture!!! It was simply dripping!
Dry the bread pieces 2 minutes at a time. No longer! The snack must not burn. Two minutes, stop, toss with a fork. Keep going until the pieces start to rattle as you toss them. For me it took 4 rounds of 2 minutes. Yours will surely be different, since no two microwaves are alike. The important thing is that nothing distracts you and you don't wander off.
As soon as the bread starts to rattle when tossed, change tactics. Add time in 30-40 second bursts, 1 minute at most. And check for doneness every time you toss. In the simplest way – by tasting. As soon as the croutons have dried out, they're ready. I recommend giving them just a tiny bit longer after that, so the snack starts to colour slightly. Then it's absolutely delicious!
That's it. Oh no, not quite. Let the crispy croutons cool! You're not going to drink nice ice-cold beer with hot croutons, are you? Well, unless you're a regular at the dentist's.
When you head out with friends “for a beer”, or to the countryside for shashlik, you can always dry a batch of homemade croutons the day before, to any taste. A treat for you and your friends alike.