This was the showstopper at a dinner date with 7 girlfriends and my sister! Nothing could be simpler to make and look so exotic that people actually start asking you for its recipe even before they have the first bite! At home, a Brie dish is always served as an appetiser, it’s a cheese that makes you look good. It’s exotic and it pairs beautifully with wine. This time however I took the brie a notch higher, yes that is possible, by pairing it with some glorious honey coated roasted figs. Honey and figs, a pair made in heaven!
This dish is actually just a cleverly put together one, It doesn’t need any exotic cooking skills. It’s pure management of resources, as I would like to put it. What you however do need is a sweet-spicy-herby jam to go with it. I had some left overs from my peach-cranberry-basil jam that was made last winter. I added a bit of my chilli jam (i usually make my own, but that recipes hasn’t made it to the blog as yet, but this is where my recipe came from) and a bit of my carrot and ginger jam to it. (i promise to post some jam recipes soon) and to bring out all the fresh flavours of the figs and jam and cheese I added some more freshly chopped basil to the jam. And kept some aside for garnishing. For crackers I used Ragi crackers from Baker’s Dozen but you could make your own multigrain crackers too.
In India, figs are almost on their way out, in case you don’t get them you could try this recipe with fresh mangoes too, Mangoes and basil again a great pair. However don’t grill the mangoes! Or even some roasted watermelon rind, just the white part of the watermelon. Mix that up with the fleshly red interiors. Or grilled papaya! Yup that’s awesome too!
Time Taken: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 15 minutes
Serves: 8
Skill level: Basic
Equipment needed: Oven, baking tray, serving dish
Ingredients:
- 8 figs
- 200 grams of Brie (I’ve used Dairyland bought at Nature’s Basket)
- 5 tablespoons of peach-chilli-basil jam mix
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 2 packs of Ragi crackers
- Freshly chopped basil leaves
Method:
1. Cut the figs into quarters and pour some honey over it. Grill it for 10 minutes in a hot oven at 180 degree centigrade.
2. Unwrap the Brie and grill it besides the figs for 10-15 minutes, till the top is golden and bubbling.
3. Heat the jam and add a teaspoon full of freshly chopped basil. You could use my bacon jam too, and use rosemary or thyme instead of basil.
4. In a serving dish, place the brie at the centre, place the grill figs around it. Top the Brie with the jam and pour some of it on the figs too. Place the crackers on the corners of the serving dish. Sprinkle some more freshly chopped basil on top of the cheese and serve hot!
Sounds yummy. Will definitely try this one. What say you to adding some walnuts too?