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Tomato
and Basil Bruschetta
Ingredients:
3
medium size tomatoes,
diced
1/3
cup fresh basil,
chopped
1 garlic
clove, minced
1 French
Baguette (or 1/2 loaf Italian bread)
1 large
garlic clove, halved
1 tablespoon
olive oil
3 tbsp
grated Parmesan cheese,
(optional)
Salt
and ground black
pepper to taste
Preparation:
- Combine tomatoes, basil and
minced garlic. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
- Cover
and refrigerate for up
to 3 hours.
- Slice
bread in 1 inch thick
slices.
- Place
on baking sheet and broil
until lightly browned on each side.
- Rub
one side of bread with cut
side of garlic clove, brush with olive oil and spoon tomato mixture
over
top.
- Sprinkle
with Parmesan (optional).
- Broil
brushchetta for 1
minute.
- Serve
hot.
Makes 4 servings.
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Did You Know?
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In
the earliest times bread was cooked under the embers. The use of ovens
was introduced into Europe by the Romans, who had found them in Egypt.
But, notwithstanding this importation, the old system of cooking was
long after employed, for in the tenth century Raimbold, abbot of the
monastery of St. Thierry, near Rheims, ordered in his will that on the
day of his death bread cooked under the embers panes subcinericios
should be given to his monks.
By feudal law the lord was bound to bake the bread of his vassals, for
which they were taxed, but the latter often preferred to cook their
flour at home in the embers of their own hearths, rather than to carry
it to the public oven.
It would be difficult to point out the exact period at which leavening
bread was adopted in Europe, but we can assert that in the Middle Ages
it
was anything but general. Yeast, which, according to Pliny, was already
known to the Gauls, was reserved for pastry, and it was only at the end
of
the sixteenth century that the bakers of Paris used it for bread.
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