This recipe is more a guidance of how to do the bread chips than an exact recipe. The amount of oil and spices depends on your personal taste and preference (hot, spicy or mild - salty or just a little seasoned) and growing experience in preparing them. If you end up with underseasoned chips, you always can add some spices afterwards. These spiced breadcrumbs can work wonders as you can top gratins or pasta with them (coarsely crushed). You can coat oven roast vegetables with them (finely crushed), sprinkle them on salads (coarsely crushed) or you can bread fish/meat/cheese/etc. with them (finely crushed).

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C (390°F) and line one or two baking trays with parchment paper. Cut the bread (rolls) into - preferably - equally thin slices (2 mm is perfect) and drizzle with your favourite olive oil. I usually spread the bread slices in my bain-marie bowl and drizzle each layer with a little olive oil, then toss them a couple of times until all of them are lightly covered in oil. Distribute them on the trays and sprinkle with fine sea salt, finely ground chili flakes or cayenne pepper and finally a generous dust (I use a fine mesh sieve) of garam masala powder.

2. If you have a fan assisted oven, you can bake both trays at the same time (one top level, one at the bottom, rotate after 3 or 4 min), if not, bake one after another (on middle level). Just make sure to check back every min during your first baking session, similar to nuts they can go from pale to burnt within no time! Take out once they are golden brown, let cool completely on the tray, then take two opposite sides of the parchment paper and carefully let them slide into a sealable bowl or airtight container. That way they keep crisp for two weeks and longer.

3. Done? No, wait, the best part is yet to come. Since I prepare these nearly each and every week with different bread and bread roll leftovers, we hardly ever run out of them. On the contrary, we sometimes have too much and so I started to crush the older ones by hand (more coarsely) or with a food processor (finely) and used the crumbs to take some everyday dishes to the next level. These spiced breadcrumbs do work wonders!

Enjoy!