Dinner Unexpected

Time: 5 pm Sunday evening... Mood: Hungry...

Fridge Inspection reveals a rather dismal selection...

Suspect uncooked sausage (tossed), miso paste, (ignored) half of a 100% cocoa bar, (do not consume a.. la cart, very bitter), 3 cerignola olives and some week old sliced mushrooms greet me as I peer into the chilly confines of the ’icebox’.

The olives are consumed while contemplating the mushrooms... mehh…

A quick inspection of the meat/cheese drawer reveals the presence of brie, Ile de France - Le Brie 7.7oz to be precise. (This same type of cheese I provided to my un-suspecting southern mother once… She complained about the amount of moldy rind that had to be trimmed off, to get to the relatively small amount of soft edible insides… "Mom, you eat the whole thing…" says I. Her only response was to grimace and continue to peel away the rind)

Baked brie sounds decent... Artsy and pretentious too… oh how wrong I am…
I have a fresh sourdough loaf from Panera (I know I know... it’s a chain but Provence is a pain to trek to on a Sunday morning...)
Sooo buttered sourdough toast with baked brie... I could be eating worse... Oh!.. Look on the top self... some left over pineapple... (side note: for those of you who frequent Whole Foods, the miniature pineapple is a rip off... Cool to look at, but outrageously priced for the same flavor as a regular sized pineapple... Do not buy except for novelty sake.)

So here is my recipe for "Brie à l’ananas sur pain grillé" - Brie with Pineapple on toasted bread (with my exact prep method)
Ingredients:
3 tsp butter – room temperature
2 slices of sourdough bread – Thick sliced, Texas Toast style
½ Cup small dice fresh pineapple or canned crushed pineapple mostly drained
1 tsp sugar
1 small wheel of brie (see above for exact brand I used) 7.7 oz (219g)
Juice from half a medium blood orange about 1½ - 2 tbsp , substitute a tart orange of some type, or 2 tbsp juice from a box/carton
Method:
The brie and toast: via a toaster oven.
Line toaster oven pan with aluminum foil for easy cleanup
Butter up the bread with 2 tsp of butter, set on toaster oven pan butter side up. (someone would have done it butter side down and been disappointed if I hadn’t said something)
Place the brie on a small square of parchment paper next to the bread on the pan.
Place pan of bread and cheese in a cold toaster oven.
Set temp to 450°, turn the timer to 15 minutes and start the cooking process.
My toaster has a selection of Bake, Broil, Toast, Slow Cook etc. I chose Bake to start.


The Pineapple Sauce, chutney, garnish, relish… Stuff… whatever you want to call it.
While the cheese and bread are toasting, preheat a sauté pan over medium high heat then add the remaining tsp of butter. It's gonna bubble for a bit and just start to turn brown…

Now for those of you that think margarine is a suitable substitute for butter let me just kinda chew your ear for a second… I am not Alton Brown or a food scientist or a professional chef but in my humble opinion butter has better flavor for cooking and is unequaled as a browning fat… Here are a couple of articles on butter and margarine that help tell the story.
http://www.ochef.com/864.htm
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/butter-vs-margarine/AN00835

Once you have attained barely brown on your butter (margarine doesn’t really brown, it just melts… no milk solids) pitch in the pineapple. Toss, stir, fold, or shake the pineapple in the butter. It will start to take on some color. Get a little caramelization going then add the blood orange juice and sugar…Cook this for approximately 5 minutes or until the sugar and juice start to thicken.

At around 5 minutes till DING! on the toaster oven, I flip the selector over to "Toast". Why you ask…
Well, Bake on my little oven does a good job of getting things warmed up but not a great job of toasting especially from a cold start. So ten minutes in, everything is starting to get yummy and warm but not as brown as I want it…
So kick it over to toast and the top heating element kicks on to join the bottom one. Broil would turn off the bottom element while cranking up the top one… I want them both on... "Toast" does the trick.

DING!!! If your toaster has done the same thing mine does then you will get mahogany colored sourdough and brie that looks like it has been brushed with espresso.

Plating… I am about to get into trouble with at least one of my readers. I didn’t take photos... (I’m sorry doll.) I promise to prepare this again, following the recipe and taking photos along the process.

I would love to say that I lovingly placed all the items on a plate, artfully arranged with the Pineapple Sauce, chutney, garnish, relish… Stuff, in a little condiment cup, cut the brie down the middle allowing it to ooze out onto the plate, and stepped back to admire my handy work - but that would be a blatant lie…
What actually occurred was that I dubiously cut off a bit of the brie, chased it around the plate until it had cooled a little then smeared it on the toast. Topping the brie was a minimal spoon load of the Pineapple Stuff.
As with many of the things I throw together in the kitchen, I was slightly afraid of what I had wrought. The first bite though, was mind altering. Brie immediately became one of my favorite cheeses, sourdough was confirmed as the best toasting bread on the planet and I was suddenly more tolerant of the artsy crowd I used to a hang out during my RHPS days, baked brie being a favorite item of some of the theater students who used to annoy me after the show.
I scarfed down the remainder of the prepared fromage goo and pineapple stuff on the amazing bread. So yummy, and so simple.
This is one of the few times, maybe the only time that I have immediately written down the recipe for something that I brewed up on a whim.
Pair it up with like I did with a Wood Chuck Draft Cider – Dark & Dry.
Enjoy
J.A.F.A.R.