Recipes · From leftover bread
Rye crisps from the last of the loaf
What happens to the ends of the loaf: thin fingers of leib, a little oil, garlic and salt, baked until they snap.
- Makes
- A big bowl, a snack for four
- Hands-on
- 10 minutes
- Start to finish
- About 35 minutes
- Oven
- 170 °C
Nothing is thrown away in a rye kitchen. A loaf gone dry at the edges becomes crisps, croutons for soup or the start of leivasupp. These are the crisps, the kind that turn up next to a glass of beer all over the Baltics, usually fried and heavy with garlic. Baked at home they are lighter, and they keep for a week in a tin.
Method
- Heat the oven to 170 °C. Cut the bread into slices about 5 mm thick, then into fingers. Thin is the whole secret: thick pieces stay chewy in the middle.
- Stir the garlic and salt into the oil, pour it over the bread in a large bowl and toss with your hands until every piece is lightly coated.
- Spread them in one layer on a lined tray and bake for 15–25 minutes, turning once, until dry and crisp. They darken quickly at the end, so look every few minutes after 15.
- Leave them to cool on the tray. They crisp up further as they cool.
Notes
- For the fried version, fry the fingers in a few millimetres of oil until dark and crisp, drain them on paper and rub them with a cut garlic clove while still hot.
- Without garlic and salt, the same crisps are good with a little sugar and cinnamon, or crushed over a bowl of kama.