Quarantine seriously stoked our love of comfort food, not to mention our cravings for carbs.
So it's little surprise that SoMa's Zero Zero caught our attention mid-pandemic with a next-level garlic bread aimed at satisfying even the most intense munchies.
The restaurant's "Stoner" garlic bread made our list of top 100 takeout dishes and, yes, it is the creation of a stoned and hungry chef.
Last summer, chef-owner Bruce Hill was resurfacing the floors at Zero Zero and had plans to hit a friend's barbecue later on. "I wanted to bring garlic bread, so I raided the line and almost all of the ingredients were on the pasta station," he says.
Several Italian spices, cheeses, and slathers of butter later, Hill shared the bread with his crew. After a few puffs of mary jane, they started digging into the bread: "We had a stoner Fourth, and discussed how it could be even better," he remembers. "I came up with cooking it on a bent wire rack to create space between the slices. This can also be achieved by making a foil bridge to hold the bread in that shape."
Get the recipe for this oh-so-delicious garlic bread below.
Stoner Garlic Bread
Makes 8 servings
Equipment: blender, mixing bowls, pastry bag or ziploc baggie, sheet pan, foil
Ingredients
Butter, unsalted, soft 150 grams
Cream Cheese, soft 50 grams
Grana Padano Cheese, grated 100 grams
Fresh Mozzarella cheese, chopped fine 200 grams
Calabrian Chili, chopped 40 grams
Garlic, chopped 60 grams
EVOO 60 grams
Fresh basil 40 grams
Kosher Salt 3 grams
Pepper, freshly ground 5 grams
Panorama Rusticana Batard bread, 2 loaves (each is 15 inches long)
Prepped Stoner Garlic Bread ready to bake on a curved baking rack.(Bruce Hill)Directions
- Bring all of your ingredients to room temperature.
- Preheat the oven to 475 degrees or 425 if you have a convection oven.
- In a small, non-stick pan, cook all of the chopped garlic in 30 grams of olive oil. Cook till soft. Move it to a plate to cool off.
- Soak 40 grams of green basil leaves in ice water and drain. Some water may stick to the basil -- this is ok as soaking in ice water helps keep the basil's green color.
- Puree the basil leaves in a blender with 20 grams of olive oil with the salt and pepper.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine the butter, cream cheese, and 10 grams of olive oil. Mix thoroughly to a smooth consistency.
- Fold in the basil puree, Calabrian chili, Grana Padano cheese, and mozzarella cheese into the butter mixture with a rubber spatula.
- Transfer the butter mixture to pastry bags. (If needed, create a makeshift pastry bag by cutting off a small corner of a ziploc baggie).
- Keep your butter mixture at room temp while you move to prep the bread.
- Take each 15-inch loaf of bread and cut it in half lengthwise, then cut each in half again. This will leave you with 4 quarter wedges of bread, each 3x7 inches.
- Score the top of each quarter wedge of bread into 6-7 slits, being careful not to cut all the way through. The bread will now look like an accordion or row of knuckles.
- Generously pipe the butter mixture between the slits you cut in the bread and rub a generous amount of butter mixture all over the bread avoiding the bottom.
- Bake the bread on a bent rack (or wadded up in foil) to help keep the loaf's bent shape for 8 minutes.
- Serve piping hot!