Buttered Croutons

It's been a while...

We're going to have soup and I'm trying to keep my ingredients as natural as possible, so I've I decided to kill two birds with one stone by finishing up some bread that was a few days off it's best while creating a healthy addition to my winter soup. Here it is:

Buttered Croutons

what you'll need:

Past its best bread (although fresh will do)
olive oil
Garlic - finely chopped (optional)
lurpak butter
herbes de provence
freshly ground black pepper
wok
baking tray
Silver foil
kitchen roll
container to store croutons in


- Start by cutting up the bread into cubes - as big or small as you want them for your soup
- preheat the oven to 220 degrees C and put all the cubes on the foil on a baking tray and put in the oven for 10 mins to dry out
- check on them after 5minutes - the croutons should be dry and the softness should have gone. This may happen before 10 mins so keep checking them. You're looking for them to be soft and chewy in the middle when you finish the whole dish (wok etc) so make sure they're dray but not baked to a crisp for this part
- put a generous lug or two of olive oil in a wok and add two generous lumps of butter - two big knife scrapings should do it (the olive oil prevents the butter from catching as butter on it's own burns easily)
- heat the wok until it's sizzling (medium to high heat)
- add the dry croutons from the baking tray and toss them quickly so as much of the oil/butter covers every part of the croutons
- Turn the croutons over quickly and constantly. Once the croutons start to brown nicely add the finely chopped garlic, herebes de provence and some ground black pepper
- make sure all the croutons get nicely browned before removing (you may find you burn a couple - but this just means you lose a few to get a nicely browned majority.
- transfer the croutons back to the baking tray to cool off (this is essential before you put in the container as if they're still warm the steam in the container will make them go soft and you want them nice n crispy!)

Add to any soup - I like Veggie or a nice Butternut Squash soup in the winter - if you're feeling really unhealthy add some emmental cheese gratings.

Enjoy!