Kepta Duona

Lithuanian fingers of dark rye bread fried crisp and rubbed with raw garlic, with a bowl of cheese dip

Origin: Vilnius & Lithuania

From the journey of Rye.

Kepta duona means simply fried bread, and in Lithuania it means one thing: thick fingers of dark rye bread fried in oil until the crust crackles, rubbed or tossed with raw garlic while still hot, salted, and eaten with beer. It is the standard bar snack of the country, ordered by the plate with the first round, and Latvia eats the same thing as ķiploku grauzdiņi, garlic croutons. It depends entirely on the bread. Lithuanian juoda duona, black bread, is a dense, sour, slightly sweet rye loaf, and it behaves quite differently from wheat bread in hot oil. Its close crumb takes up little fat and the outside turns hard and crisp whilst the middle stays chewy. White bread fried the same way turns greasy and collapses. The dish is also the answer to a real question, which is what to do with a rye loaf that has gone past its best. Throwing bread away sits very badly in Lithuanian culture, where bread and salt are still offered to guests and to newly married couples as the first sign of welcome, and a day-old or two-day-old loaf is exactly what this recipe wants. The cheese dip served alongside is a later bar-room addition and is now almost universal; the garlic and the rye are the dish. Lithuanians drink it with beer, or with gira, the Lithuanian name for kvass, which is itself a drink brewed from rye bread.

Ingredients

Bread

400 g Lithuanian or Latvian dark rye bread, a day or two old
150 ml sunflower oil, for frying
4 cloves garlic, peeled
1 tsp flaky sea salt

Cheese Dip

100 g mild hard cheese, finely grated
100 g mayonnaise
50 g soured cream
1 clove garlic, finely grated
1 tbsp chopped dill

Method

Stir together the grated cheese, mayonnaise, soured cream, grated garlic, and dill, and chill the dip while you fry the bread.
Cut the bread, crusts and all, into fingers about 1.5 cm thick and 8 cm long.
Heat the oil in a wide frying pan over a medium-high heat until a cube of bread sizzles immediately.
Fry the fingers in batches, turning them, for three to four minutes until crisp and darkened on every side. Drain on kitchen paper.
While the fingers are still hot, rub each one with the cut side of a halved garlic clove, or crush the garlic into a bowl with a little of the frying oil and toss the fingers through it. Salt at once.
Pile onto a plate and serve immediately with the cheese dip.

Notes

For a lighter version, toss the fingers in 3 tbsp of oil and bake them on a tray at 200 °C for 12 to 15 minutes, turning once, then add the garlic in the same way. The bread must be a dense rye. A Lithuanian, Latvian, or Polish dark rye works; so does a German or Danish rye, provided it is not heavily seeded, as seeds scorch in the oil. The dip is optional, and some bars serve the fingers plain with nothing but salt.

The Gastrographer

Name: Kepta Duona
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 15 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Vilnius & Lithuania
Ingredients: 400 g Lithuanian or Latvian dark rye bread, a day or two old; 150 ml sunflower oil, for frying; 4 cloves garlic, peeled; 1 tsp flaky sea salt; 100 g mild hard cheese, finely grated; 100 g mayonnaise; 50 g soured cream; 1 clove garlic, finely grated; 1 tbsp chopped dill

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Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route

Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control