Bruschetta

Serve when

Serve it as Julie fries the bread in butter and sighs, 'Is there anything better than butter?' — the first thing she cooks with real joy.

Before you start

Tomatoes need fifteen minutes to macerate and make their own juice while the bread fries — start both together, ten minutes ahead.

Cook-along start: ~0:04

In the movie

Theatrical

00:13:50 Julie's first on-screen cooking moment: she makes bruschetta, frying bread in butter, and delivers the film's ode to butter — 'you can never have too much butter' — the small pleasure that reminds her she loves to cook.

Before the project, before the blog, there's just Julie frying bread in butter and being briefly, completely content. "Is there anything better than butter?" she asks, and the film lets the small domestic pleasure of it stand for the whole reason anyone bothers to cook. It's the humble bookend to Julia's browned-butter sole an ocean and a generation away.

Ingredients

4 thick slices rustic bread
3 tablespoons butter (yes, butter — per Julie)
4 ripe tomatoes, diced
1 clove garlic, halved, plus 1 clove minced
6 basil leaves, torn
2 tablespoons good olive oil
Flaky salt and black pepper

Method

Toss the diced tomatoes with the minced garlic, basil, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Let them sit 15 minutes to make a little juice.
Fry the bread slices in butter over medium heat until deep golden and crisp on both sides — the film is emphatic that butter, not oil, is the move here.
Rub each hot slice with the cut side of the halved garlic clove.
Spoon the tomatoes generously over the bread, letting the juices soak in.
Finish with a thread of olive oil and a little more flaky salt. Eat immediately, standing in the kitchen, happy.

Beyond the recipe

Watch & shop

Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child

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