Italian Garlic Knots / Garlic Knots Recipe

After some time Yesterday baked these flavorful, light, airy, chewy and delicious Garlic Knots. Nothing can beat the homemade fresh hot n flavorful bakes, these knots turned out so so good than to my expectation. It was very soft n flavorful even my 4 yr old loved it. The addition of Italian seasoning, garlic n oregano makes it more flavorful and tasty. I usually do yeast bakes on the day itself and never tried with refrigerated dough. Recently read this on a blog, that the refrigerated yeast dough(for any bread/bun etc.,) will give you a very soft, airy and delicious breads.

And for this Garlic knots also few recipes suggested to work with chilled dough which is easy to handle while u make knots. So with these in mind i refrigerated the dough overnight and am really happy with the result. But still u can make this Garlic knots as soon as the dough risen.

I added few tsp of chopped chillies to garlic butter, so few knots were little spicy n i loved it. On the whole it was a nice experience and i loved the aroma of garlic-butter-cilantro-chillies, too good. Give it a try..u will love it!
After referring many sites i myself tried it from the scratch and the recipe as follows..

Ingredients

1. All Purupose Flour     2 1/2 cups + as need for dusting.
2. Active Dry Yeast       one 1/4 oz packet
3. Sugar       1/2 tbsp
4. Salt          1/2 tsp
5. Garlic Powder     1/4 tsp
6. Italian Seasoning    1/2-1 tsp
7. Oregano        1/2 tsp
8. Olive Oil    4 tbsp +  few tsp for brushing
9. Warm Water      1/2 cup + 3 tbsp

Garlic Butter

1. Butter      4 tbsp
2. Garlic     3 fat cloves(minced or finely chopped)
3. Green chilli    2 no.s(finely chopped - optional)
4. Cilantro /Parsley     1/4 cup (finely chopped)
5. Salt      1 tsp or to taste.

Method

• In a large mixing bowl, add warm water, olive oil, yeast, salt, sugar and mix together to dissolve yeast and set it rest for 3-5 minutes.
• Meanwhile, in an another bowl, sift flour, garlic powder, Italian seasoning, oregan mix well and keep ready.

• Once the yeast-oil mixture turns frothy add flour mixture and mix together to a dough.
• Then grease ur hands with oil and knead the dough for 4-5 minutes until soft n elastic.

• Lay dough in a bowl greased with olive oil, then flip the dough, cover and let rise for 1to 2 hours or until almost doubled.( mine got doubled within 2 hours).
• After rising if u want u can chill the dough in the fridge for 20-30 minutes or u can proceed as such.
• Punch down the air and knead the dough for few seconds and
• Then divide the dough into two halves, while working with one half cover the other half with cling wrap n refrigerate until use.

• Now on a floured surface, roll the dough using rolljng pin to10" circle, like we do for chapathi/rotis.
• Then using pizza cutter or knife cut less than 1" vertical strips7-8 stripes.

• Pick one stripe, roll the strip n stretch well n make knot as soon in the above pic or click here to watch a video on making garlic knot.
• Once done making knots, brush knots with olive oil or melted butter and cover loosely with plastic wrap or cloth.
• Allow to proof for 30-40 minutes.
• At the end of proofing time, preheat oven to 400 F.

• Then bake the knots for 12-15 minutes or until light golden bown.
• Meanwhile, melt butter in a sauce pan, fry garlic till crisp n golden brown and add chillies n cilantro. Stir well.
• As soon as the knots are done, brush with garlic butter or simply toss the knots with warm garlic butter.
• Thats' it . Serve warm.

Notes:
Adding garlic powder, oregano n italian seasoning is optional but sure it gives u nice flavor.
Instead of butter u can also use olive oil for entire recipe.
I baked my knots at 375 F for about 17 minutes.

Sending this to Vardhini's Bake Fest # 17 Happening @ A Homemaker's Diary and to Nithu's Event - Healthy Foods for Kids ~ Italian Dishes Happening at Nivedhanam.
And to Carole's Chatter - Food On Friday:Go For Garlic