Monthly Archives: December 2015

Brie En (Herbed) Croute

Stuff I Cook

If you’ve followed my blog, you might have noticed a “trend” in my cooking. It’s always herbed! I love herbs. I feel like if you “herb” well, you don’t really need to do a lot of salting. It’s fun to train your palate to appreciate more than in-your-face salty, sour or sweet.

Brienen croute has become very popular nowadays. The first that I made was a recipe I pulled from Pepperidge Farm using their puff pastry crust. It wasn’t bad except that puff pastry can really be “oily” mainly because a good puff pastry should have a enough butter between sheets. So I tried different recipes of dough to wrap the brie with. I ended up using  home-made pizza dough, the recipe coming from my own trusty bread maker. Sometimes, the best things in life are right under our very noses. Naturally, I added some herbs to it.

For the cheese, I used Truffled Brie from Whole Foods.

Put the brie at the center of the herb dough
Put the brie at the center of the herb dough
Wrap around the brie by pleating. This is not to make it look fancy. This is to make "walls" so that you can put jam on top of it when cooked. The little ball on top of it is my own artistic touch. It serves no purpose whatsoever.
Wrap around the brie by pleating. This is not to make it look fancy. This is to make “walls” so that you can put jam on top of it when cooked. The little ball on top of it is my own artistic touch. It serves no purpose whatsoever.

Bake in 350 for 15 minutes.

Once baked, you can now put your favorite jam or compote on top, with the little walls you made to keep it in place.
Once baked, you can now put your favorite jam or compote on top, with the little walls you made to keep it in place.

I used Fig Port Jam which I got from Napa. I cannot remember what store I got it from. I want to say it was one of the cheese places. This is why I have a blog, I really need to document the good stuffs i had. I’ve been googling it for days, no bueno. That means I will have to learn how to make it…ugh.

All cut up and ready to go. I added dried carrots and dried kiwi on the side. I forgot where I got these also. The individual slate boards are D's finds. He got it from this exotic store called Amazon :-)
All cut up and ready to go. I added dried carrots and dried kiwi on the side. I forgot where I got these also. The individual slate boards are D’s finds. He got it from this exotic store called Amazon 🙂

Pesto Scallops

Stuff I Cook

Scallops remind me a lot of my childhood. It’s my dad’s favorite so we always have it on special occasions. Our cook then was not really very imaginative. She would fry it and then we would dip it in soy sauce. End of story.  I used to mix mine with pesto pasta. Now, I ditched the pasta and went straight to the good stuff, so just plain scallops and pesto.

I make my own pesto ahead of time. There’s nothing to it. You just need a ton of basil leaves, pine nuts and good olive oil. Whip em up in a food processor and you’re done! If you have are not inclined to DIY, Trader Joe’s has good stuff. Try not to get one on the “creamy” side, not for this recipe anyway.

Get a pound of giant scallops, wash then pat dry. Fry in olive oil about 2 minutes per side until translucent in color. Scallops are pretty much like cooking squid or chicken. Cook ’em too long or too soon, it ends up chewy.

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Drain in paper towels then mix with 3 T of pesto. For a special touch I add a few leaves of finely chopped mint

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Serve warm. No soy sauce needed.