Hello again everyone!
Happy Sunday Morning.
Anybody else get a free Thursday off this week? Yeah. Fucking great. Gotta love when a fixed date holiday falls in the middle of a goddamn work week.
I’ll celebrate the 4th of July with a bowl of vegetarian soup! What could be more goddamn American than that?
Fucking hell.
Who the fuck am I to complain? It’s one day less of getting ready for work and a day free from commuting on the LA freeways so shit yes, I’ll take it.
Anyway.
Hope y’all are doing well so far this summer. Holy shit! We actually hit 80 degrees here for the first time in like 2 years. Tons of sunshine, lots of good walking weather. Just your basic good shit.
Got a quick and easy one for you today. Not an entree or anything.
I guess if you wanted to you could make a meal out of this but you probably want to be more friendly to your colon. That could result in a few weeks worth of blockage.
Sure! Share that shit on Facebook. “Hi everyone! I just ate a whole goddamn pound of cheese!” You’ll get so many goddamn thumbs up emojis.
As I was saying, this here dish is a perfect dish for a party or gathering. Super fucking easy, just a handful of ingredients and shit howdy it is one tasty motherfucker.
Think of a hot cheese dip made with brie, blackberries and thyme.
Got it?
Yes, you’re correct. This IS the second time I’ve made a baked brie on Sunday Gravy this season. The first time was for our Chili Crisp episode.
Holy Jesus, that’s a damn good photo right there.
You did remember to buy your bottle of chili crisp didn’t you?
Good job.
The origin of today’s dish is basically a blatant ripoff from daughter youngest right. She made this exact same recipe a couple of years back for one of our family holiday gatherings and I was so damn impressed that I vowed to one day feature it on Sunday Gravy.
And here we are.
En Croute is a new one here. I’ll let the good folks at TheSpruceEats.com do the honors:
“In the culinary arts, the term en croute (pronounced “on KROOT”) indicates a food that has been wrapped in pastry dough and then baked in the oven. The dough can be an ordinary pie dough or puff pastry. And the item can be baked in a dish or simply rolled up in pastry and baked on a rack.
In other words, when you hear something en croute, what it basically means is it’s a pot pie of some kind.”
Kind of the origin story of the line from the “Sing a Song of Sixpence” song but my ass ain’t eating any goddamn blackbirds.
Lot’s of things can be wrapped up in pastry and baked. Beef Wellington for example. I was reading a couple of recipes for baked salmon en croute that included a brined salmon sprinkled with fresh dill that sounded mighty goddamn tasty.
So let’s en croute us some brie up in here!
Baked Brie with Blackberries and Thyme En Croute!
here’s a recipe link from the folks at homemadehome.com that I used for reference
1 Sheet Puff Pastry, thawed
1/2 pound Brie Cheese
1 Egg + 1 Tbsp Water
1 cup Fresh Blackberries
2–3 Tbsp Blackberry Jam – or use the boysenberry syrup that we had in the house.
1 Tbsp Fresh Thyme
1/8 tsp Fresh Ground Black Pepper
I felt it was time to finish the last sheet of our shitty puff pastry.
Yeah that’s the same puff pastry that previously turned to goo when we did steak, Guinness and mushroom pie.
This is it’s last goddamn chance!
Defrost the pastry.
And it’s time to bring out two of our featured guests right now!
For those of you who may have scratched your noggin at the thought of these two ingredients together, just know that they WORK together flawlessly
Those blackberries are looking pretty nice there. Maybe a close up?
Oh, very nice.
The leftover berries from this dish were added to my already dynamite banana, blueberry and strawberry smoothie giving us the rare TRIPLE berry smoothie and fuck me sideway was that delicious.
I got to eat these more often.
Time now to bring out…
Our star of the show.
Your choice here. You can go with the fanciest brie you want or the generic store bought brand. I kind of went mid-table with Murray’s because I love every cheese I’ve ever had from them.
And I’ve had a LOT of their cheese.
As previously mentioned I didn’t buy blackberry jam/preserves because we already had this shit in the house.
That’s back from brother TAJ’s delirium filled Monte Cristo burger episode a few weeks back.
Ain’t crazy about blackberries? Use what you like. Any fruit and preserves combo would be fantastic I just really dug this here version when the kiddo made it so I’m rolling with what I know.
To begin, gently remove the top rind of the brie and add on the berries.
I found that you can really go nuts with the berries here.
Oh shit! Nuts!
You could put some almond slivers or crushed macadamias or something like this on top too.
Fuck! Too late for this version. Maybe next time.
Drizzle the syrup, jelly whatever right over the top of the blackberries and brie then add on the black pepper and the minced fresh thyme. I held a little of the thyme back because I thought it would look sexy baked into the crust.
Now the fun part. Wrap this entire motherfucker up as a package. Just do the best that you can.
Yes, that supposed to be a “decorative” braid on top. When I was making this “Braid” it showcased perfectly just how “gifted” I am in the arts and crafts world. Meaning I fucking SUCK at anything remotely crafty. So I just said “Fuck it” and draped the braid thing on top in my own lame ass way.
Baste everything with the egg wash. Get all sides and underneath as best as you can.
Into the preheated 400 degree oven this goes. Give her about 30 minutes maybe 35 minutes.
Let’s see how we did.
Oh Shit!
Even the braid-thingy looks good. I’ll be fucked in the ass!
Let’s take another look
Did I do that?
Goddamn!
I’m sure you noticed that while the pastry browned up very nicely it sure didn’t pull its weight as a containment device. That shit leaked out like molten fucking magma.
You’ll need a selection of cracker or flatbread type substances to sample properly.
A heady selection of crisps right there.
You’ll need the crackers at first but eventually when the brie cools off, you can just rip off hunks of the pastry and use that as a sopping device. The pastry was MUCH better this time by the way.
Please take notice of an important safety tip: This shit is going to be a fiery, bubbling lava pit when it comes out of the oven so exercise some goddamn restraint before just diving in face first like a fucking savage.
The roof of your mouth will thank you.
This shit is wonderful. I did notice that it could have taken on a lot more flavor too. The idea of adding a big ass dollop of preserves is a damn good one. And that idea with the nuts on top would have been killer too.
This still was dynamite and the entire crew loved it. Want to know a weird outcome? There wasn’t even a slight hint of crunchy blackberry seeds. They must have dissolved it the molten quagmire or something.
This baby is salty, cheesey, gooey and the blackberry/thyme combination is excellent.
Make this one folks. Hell, save this recipe and fire this shit up for the “Owl” in February. It’s a proper keeper it is.
Well folks. Hope you enjoy the rest of your Sunday and your weird-ass random day off on Thursday.
Stay well and happy and we can do this again next week, OK?
Sounds good.
PEACE!
