Garlic knots with Marinara

Today, is the day that I jumped on the bread-making bandwagon. This is a fun and rewarding bandwagon, social media said so. Sourdough may just be a bit too advanced, so I'm going to opt out of that one for now and start with something simpler. The general bread making process is fun (yes I made some dough animals along the way), but the results are just beyond effing delicious. This monumental day shall mark the first day of bread making, of all bread making history. On a more humble note, today I was legitimately bored of making the same old things I make and was looking for a way to warm up my tummy and my home. What can be more satisfying.. than garlicky, buttery, freshly baked garlic knots?

First off, if you live in the Toronto area, or the general eastern time zone - what is up with the weather? We went through all 4 seasons of the year today from rain to shine, hail to snow, back to rain, cloudy and let's pick up some wind, oh look there's the sun again. What?? This crazy day was best spent indoors - I obviously much prefer outdoors with t-shirt and shorts possibilities but I'm not about to fight the sky. This weather inspired me for nothing, except... baking. And bake, I shall!

What you need:

Dough

- 1 1/2 cup of all purpose flour

- 1 tsp of instant dry yeast

- 1 cup warm water

- 1 tsp of olive oil

- 1 tsp salt

Garlic butter topping:

-2 tbsp butter

- 4 cloves garlic

- 1 hand full (5 twigs) of parsley

Marinara sauce:

- tomato sauce (canned)

- 1 small fresh tomato

- 1 tsp garlic powder

- 1/2 tsp oregano

- 1/2 tsp fresh pepper and 1 tsp of salt

- hot chili flakes

Recipe:

- Mix the flour, yeast and salt together in a large bowl. Make a little well/hollow area in the middle of the flour mix, and pour in olive oil and warm water. You can try to be precise with the water temperature (some say 38-40 degrees or so Celsius) or you can just guesstimate it. Human body temperature is around 37.5 C so stick your hand in the water and it should feel just a bit warm. Voila! Our bodies are already perfectly good thermometers.

- Roll the dough into a ball, cover with saran wrap and let it sit in room temp for an hour or so. The saran wrap may feel a bit warm and start to fog, this is a good sign! This will allow the dough to rise and your knots fluffier.

- While you wait on the dough, chop garlic and parsley finely, melt the butter, dash of salt so the garlic flavors marinate into the butter mix.

- Marinara sauce can be started now, over a med heat stove top pan. Throw all ingredients in, heat till it bubbles, reduce heat to low or simmer. 

- Once the dough has been sitting for an hour (don't skip the time or get impatient, go have a cup of coffee or something while you wait), take the dough ball out and put it on a counter with a dust of flour. This is to keep your hands from sticking to the dough as you work on it.

- Roll the dough into a long skinny shape, and cut 10 equal-ish strips so to make 10 knots. The number of strips can vary, you just end up with larger and fewer, or small but more numerous number of knots.
- Stretch and twist the long strip of dough, tuck in the ends.

- Put the formed knots on the baking tray, bake for 10 min, in preheated oven, 350F.

- Take the tray out and brush the garlic butter mix on top of all the knots. I divided all the garlic butter, it's tastier with the knots drenched in butter, yes?

- Bake for another 8 min. I turned on the broiler for an additional 2 min at the end to brown the top. Timing depends on your oven temperature - you are aiming for golden brown so just watch it at the end.

Now let the knots sit in room temp to cool for 2 min, sprinkle a dash of Parmesan cheese, dip into pipping hot marinara sauce - wow! You can't just eat one, I promise these are such a hit! Hope you feel inspired to make these on your own.

Notes:

- As usual, let's give credit for the source inspiration for these garlic knots: Tasty! https://tasty.co/recipe/garlic-knots The recipe is pretty accurate if you follow the steps and only baking time was a bit too short so I added some time and boiled a bit - turned out beautiful. 

- Marinara sauce I did my own thing. Feel free to experiment on your own too!

- Use WARM water, not hot, not cold. WARM!! Hot water will kill all the yeast cells (yes they are living organism) and your flour is not going to rise. Cold water doesn't give a nice environment for the yeast to thrive - so that's a no-go.
- Substitute garlic powder for fresh garlic in the butter mix will achieve the same thing. It's less sharp but the flavor is still there without the risk of severe garlic breath.

- I had to reheat the butter mix when I'm ready to brush it onto the knots, all it takes is microwave for 15-20 sec. Quick and easy.

- You can eat the knots without the marinara too, or if you have another recipe for the marinara that's also ok. I think the tomato-y garlicky goodness went great together so highly recommended.