One fresh baguette, a wedge of brie, apricot jam (or really any jam of your choosing) and butter. Bam! We're ready to go.
First up: halve the baguette and cut it into four equal lengths. Cutting the baguette underscored the importance of using fresh bread. If the bread isn't relatively fresh it will be much more difficult to cut and won't be soft and easy to bite into/chew once you've made the actual sandwiches.
As is the norm with rounded bread the next step was pulling out some of the inside to create wells. You don't have to scrape every last bit out, but make sure to remove enough to allow you a place to put your brie and jam (and no, that's not a euphemism).
I had left the brie out of the fridge so it was room temperature and easy to work with. However, removing the rind proved to be a challenge (as always). Nonetheless with some patience and ample scraping I was good to go.
 |
| Yummm I want to eat this whole thing! |
Next came the brie sliced unceremoniously into pieces that I deemed the appropriate size to fit on the sandwiches. Once that was set I placed the other four slices on top to create my sandwiches.
This is the first time that a recipe called for me brushing butter onto the exterior of the sandwiches that I actually chose to do so (turns out a small craft brush does the job just fine-- don't worry, it had never been used). I melted about 2 Tbsp of butter and generously covered the outside of the sandwiches with it. I grilled each sandwich in my non-stick pan until the cheese was as melted as it was going to get without me burning the bread. That meant that covering the sandwiches while cooking was particularly important this time!
Taste Review:
The baguette formed a pretty solid crust around the brie which meant that there was virtually no aroma. Biting into the sandwich you notice that the crunch of the bread and the creaminess of the cheese and jam are perfect compliments to one another. I was worried that, despite using a fresh baguette, the bread would get too hard during cooking, but this was just right. It was crispy on the outside and had that crackery crunch, but the inside was pure softness.
Brie is just a great cheese. Despite the less than stellar Salmon and Brie Quesadilla, there is rarely an instance where I've used brie and been disappointed (and to be fair, it wasn't the brie's fault in the case of the quesadilla). The way the brie melts to be so smooth and creamy, thus blending with all the other flavors in the sandwich, is but one of its many virtues.
One quick note-- the brushing on of the melted butter proved to be a key to the sandwich's success. Something about a thin even coating of butter on the outside gave just enough of a buttery taste so that it was noticeable, but wasn't overwhelming you in some places and going missing in others (as can be the case when you spread on butter). It also made cooking a lot more even-- you can see it has a sort of golden glow over the whole top of the sandwich even though the darker center section is really where contact was made with the pan.
FINAL RESULTS:
Sandwich:
|
Grilled Brie with Apricot Jam
|
Gooey-ness:
|
3.5
|
Aroma:
|
1
|
Appearance:
|
Looks bland and boring (but looks can be deceiving).
|
Taste:
|
A- |
Gooey Scale
|
Aroma Scale
|
| 1 = still cold/hard |
1 = can’t smell
a thing
|
| 2 = slightly
melted but still firm |
2 = tender waft
|
| 3 = melted evenly |
3 = makes your
stomach growl
|
| 4 = melted and slightly runny (starting
to get those cheese strings between your sandwich and your mouth
when you take a bite) |
4 = strong scent
|
| 5 = runny |
5 = overpoweringly pungent
|
| 6 = sloppy mess! |
Colin contended that he would like this as an appetizer but it didn't fill him up as a meal. But seeing as how I eat less than him (and prefer appetizers to entrees), I was happy as a clam with this one.
No comments:
Post a Comment