Alright, so I decided to try my hand at making Kepta Duona the other day. Seen it around, figured it couldn’t be too tough. It’s basically fried bread with garlic, a classic Lithuanian thing.
First step, obviously, was getting the bread. You can’t just use any white sliced loaf. You need the proper stuff, that dense, dark rye bread. Found a loaf that looked right at a specialty store. It felt heavy, which seemed like a good sign.
Got it home. Took out my cutting board and a sharp knife. Sliced the loaf, not too thin, maybe like finger-width thick? Then I cut those slices into sticks. Think chunky French fries, that sort of size. It was pretty straightforward, just took a few minutes to get through the whole loaf.
Next came the frying part. I grabbed a decent sized frying pan, not too deep. Poured in some vegetable oil – enough so the bread sticks would be partly submerged. Turned on the heat, let the oil get properly hot. You can test it by dropping a tiny crumb of bread in, see if it sizzles right away.
Once the oil was ready, I started adding the bread sticks. Didn’t overcrowd the pan, did it in batches. You gotta watch them closely here. They can go from golden brown to burnt pretty quick. I used tongs to turn them over, making sure they got crispy on all sides. Took maybe a few minutes per batch.
As each batch finished, I scooped the fried bread out with a slotted spoon, letting the excess oil drip back into the pan. Put them onto a plate lined with paper towels. This is important to soak up that extra grease. Nobody likes overly oily fried bread.
Garlic Time
While the last batch was frying and the rest was draining, I got the garlic ready. Peeled quite a few cloves – you want a good strong garlic hit. Minced them up really fine with my knife. Some folks crush it or use a press, but mincing worked fine for me. Mixed the minced garlic with a pinch of salt.
Okay, final step. Dumped all the drained, still warm bread sticks into a big bowl. Sprinkled the garlic and salt mixture over them. Then I just tossed everything together, making sure the garlic coated the bread nicely. The heat from the bread helps release that garlic aroma. Some recipes add cheese at this point, grated, but I stuck to the basic garlic version this time.
And that was pretty much it. Piled the Kepta Duona onto a serving plate. Looked good, smelled even better. Simple, rustic, and really satisfying to make yourself. Definitely a great snack, especially with a cold beer. It wasn’t rocket science, just needed the right bread and a bit of patience with the frying.
