I’ve been really excited about this one all week. This dish has a lot of ingredients I’ve never cooked with; camembert, endives, pomegranate, and port will all be a first for me as an ingredient. I’m setting the over/under for me to make this one at 30 minutes (which is coincidentally the same same over/under for how long it will take me to be hungry again after I finish eating it.)
Here I go…
Ingredients
Camembert Parcels:
- 200g of Camembert
-100g of Walnuts
- 1 Lemon
- Chives
- Phyllo dough
Cranberry Sauce:
- 80g Dried Cranberries
- 120ml of Port
- Ground Ginger
- Ground Clove
- Thyme
Summer Salad:
- Pomegranate
- Olive oil
- Balsamic Vinegar
- Salt/Pepper
- Chives
- Endives
- Water Crest
- Arugula
- Apple
So this one cost me $64 (I had to buy everything on the list but the olive oil, balsamic, and thyme). It seems expensive but there were a few big ticket items like the port ($15), camembert ($9), and the spices ($11). I’ve never cooked with camembert before, I don’t even think I’ve tried it either. It’s a soft creamy cheese that was originally made in Normandy. If you’re having trouble finding camembert you can sub it with brie which is another soft cheese, this one from the Île-de-France. So you’re basically subbing this for this. (I’m no cheese connoisseur but I think that’s pretty accurate)
Get your food processor out and we can start on the camembert parcels. Put 200g of camembert in the food processor with 100g of walnuts, the zest of one lemon, and a small handful of chives. Mix it up for a few seconds and it’s ready to go.
Now you need four of the phyllo sheets. Lay each one out on flat surface and fold them in half. Divide the cheese into four, place it evenly on the phyllo and start rolling. Fold the edges once your done and then drizzle just a little olive oil. Place them on a frying pan over medium heat.
On to the cranberry sauce. Put the cranberries in a pot with the port and place it on high heat. Add in maybe half a tea spoon of ground ginger, a pinch of the dried cloves, and some fresh thyme. Leave it on the oven an let it boil.
Remember to keep an eye on the pastries and turn them every so often.
Grab a big bowl for your salad. We’re going to make the dressing in the bottom of the bowl first and we’ll mix it up with the salad when we’re ready to eat. Cut your pomegranate in half and squeeze out all of the juice. Add 2 tbs of olive oil, 2 tbs of balsamic vinegar, some salt and pepper. That’s it for the dressing. Chop the tips off of the endives. They will just fall apart into the shape of little cups. Place them in the bowl with your water crest, diced chives, and arugula. Next you can matchstick your apple and to finish off sprinkle some pomegranate seeds over top.
To finish off the cranberry sauce we need to pout into a liquidiser and blend it up until smooth. Ready to serve.
What went well: This one was really fun to make and it turned out great. It was very colourful and everything looked and tasted awesome.
What was tricky: Well it took me just over 40 min to make so something was tricky. (Part of that is stopping and having to take pictures. Some times they turn out crappy so I have to take more than one of each shot). I thought for sure the cheese would start oozing out of the phyllo once it was on the frying pan but once it gets mixed up with the walnuts it’s pretty thick so that helped.
What did the wife think: She was MIA tonight but I was baby sitting my 11 and 9 year old nieces again so they were here to judge. The older one gave it a “9 or 10 out of 10” and the younger one said it “was an 8 or 9”. They both said “this is soooo good” about 27 times each so I think it was a success.
“Do these sound like the actions of man whose had ALL he could eat?” I really enjoyed this dish, the only problem was that is wasn’t very filling. The recipe makes four phyllo’s so at the end of the meal my two nieces and I had a 5 minute starting contest over the last one. The problem was they are old enough now to know about “sharing” so we ended up splitting it into 3. It’s too bad anti-bullying is so on trend at the moment or it would have been a different story.
Would I make this again? I would make this one again for sure. Next time I would make it as an appy though, or even a light lunch. I give this one a solid 8/10.
Next week I’m making Jamie Oliver’s Golden Chicken with crispy fluffy potato gratin.
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Thanks for reading.
- Kirk
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