I'm not sure if people combine these ingredients regularly, but after eating this I think they should definitely start. The only reason I even attempted this was that 1) we had brie, bacon and phyllo dough, 2) Tam likes brie, 3) it seemed like a lazy thing I could make while holding Eli over a hot stove.
Of course I'm joking about that last part. He spent most of the time rooting around on our kitchen floor trying to find old bits of food, dead bugs, hair and other disgusting things to put in his mouth.
If I could pick one downside to this dish, it's that it's horribly fattening. If I could pick two, it's that it also has several steps that need to be done before you get started, so you can't be as lazy as I'd hoped. Alas.
Since I kind of made this up, I'll not go into the history of Brie or cheese, though noted dick Charles De Gaulle once quipped "How can anyone govern a nation that has two hundred and forty-six different kinds of cheese?" More to the point, who would want to? Though France is famed for its culture, it seems to have congenitally poor taste, so I suppose it should be no surprise they wound up with the likes of De Gaulle, Chirac and Sarkozy, who looks kind of like an Oompah Loompah without the spray tan. But I digress.
On to the Recipe. Don't buy expensive Brie, nor should you buy "Farmer John's Brie and Party Spread." Use your head, and maybe shop at Trader Joe's or someplace like that where it's hard to buy bad cheese. Also, for my sake, use good, smokey bacon, which will make your toes curl in this recipe. TJ's has a good applewood smoked variety.
Ingredients
10-12 oz of Brie
phyllo dough or puff pastry sheets
3 strips of bacon
1 onion
1 some sweet brown beer or some moderate red wine (a Syrah or Cab would do nicely)
olive oil
an egg
a nice, sweet apple
a head of fresh roasted garlic (I'll show you how in a forthcoming post)
salt, pepper
You should have a brush and a baking pan with parchment paper. USE PARCHMENT PAPER.
Step 1:
Chop up the bacon into little squares and cook it on medium heat until done but soft, reserving some of the fat for your caramelization process, or chuck it all if you want to eat healthfully. But let's not kid ourselves, if you're making this, you've already resigned yourself to swinishness for at least one meal, so go for it. Remove from the pan and set aside for now.
Step 2:
Thinly slice the onion into half rings and then slice into smaller bits to make it easier to eat inside the pastry. I like to cut off the top and root of the onion, chop it in half longways and peel off the skin, then slice little rings from the head to the foot then chop from the right to the left to get a quick dice.
Cover the bottom of the a small saucepan in olive oil and/or bacon grease and turn the stove on to low-medium. Add the onions and let them slowly caramelize, only stirring every now and then (resist the urge to meddle!). When they're 3/4 the way done, pour in a good dose of the beer or red wine and let it reduce, which will give your onions a wonderful depth of flavor. Continue to caramelize until they're dry - if you want, douse them again with booze for a thicker reduction. Salt and pepper to taste.
When the onions are done, remove from heat, toss in the bacon, and set aside. They'll turn a gooey brown color and taste like angel farts, which is just what you want.
Step 3:
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Take a double stacked sheet of phyllo dough and lay it out flat on a dry surface - it should look like a square. Slice up the brie and form a triangle of cheese in one of the halves of your phyllo square with it, leaving room at the edges. I say triangle, since you're going to fold the dough from corner to corner to form a triangular pocket - if you're having problems conceptualizing this, rotate your square of dough 45 degrees and smack yourself in the head with a pan, you dummy.
Pile your onion-bacon mix on top of the cheese and smash some of the roasted garlic cloves into it.
Step 4:
Take the egg and beat it thoroughly.
Brush egg on the inside edges of the dough to help seal your little turnover, then fold the empty side over the full one. I don't know why I had to explain that to you, but bear with me. Transfer your turnover carefully to the parchment covered baking pan and paint with egg until it's nicely covered, then slice a few slits in the top.
Bake on 400 for about 12 minutes, remove and serve immediately with sliced apples (which go great with it) and maybe a nice sweet potato puree.
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