Grilled Cheeses

I got home form Vegas yesterday. I know that some people love it and some people hate it. Personally I am a fan. It most likely has to do with the unbelievable food that they have down there, and I am not talking about the deep fried candy bars.

I am talking about the deep fried smelt, flown in from the Mediterranean daily. I am talking about the Spicy Chinese style lobster stir-fried to perfection. A succulent steak, a lovely variety of unusual crudo, or get this: a s’more brioche donut rolled in homemade graham cracker crumbs, stuffed with homemade marshmallow fluff that is served hot while fluff oozes out. Oh yeah, there is a side of chocolate ganache for dipping (and yes, I will be desperately trying to recreate that soon.)

If you were wondering, I rolled onto the plane 5 lbs heavier.

And in true fashion for my family, as soon as we got off the plane it was time to head to a big family dinner at my parents house and I was in charge of bringing an appetizer.

Because I was exhausted, stuffed and possibly hung over, I did not feel like getting complicated.

I remembered that I flipped through a “Food and Wine” magazine on the airplane on the way down there and there was something that stood out to me. It was Grilled Cheese.

When I say grilled cheese, I do not mean the sandwich, I mean literally- grilled cheese. As in Brie and Camembert grilled on the BBQ.

Easy, right? I tried to think about some ways to elevate the great idea. I came up with EASY flavor elevators. Fog spread and flavored olive oil.

I ran in the store on my way to the dinner, picked up a wheel of Brie, a wheel of Camembert, a baguette and a jar of fig spread.

At my parents I whipped up a quick flavored olive oil with a generous pinch of salt, red pepper flakes, fresh rosemary and one sliced clove of garlic. A little olive oil, and there you go. I grilled each of the cheeses for a few minutes and served them with the condiments. The cheese was warm and a little bit oozy with a hint of grilled charcoal flavor.

Everyone slathered the baguette slices with the hot cheese and shoveled it in!

So the moral of this rambling post is that this is a VERY EASY and fast appetizer (that I think actually looks quite elegant) and is totally delicious.

By the way- I did one wheel of Brie and one wheel of Camembert – but do whatever you want.

Grilled Cheeses
1 small wheel Brie
1 small wheel Camembert
1 tsp olive oil (for brushing the brie cheese before grilling)
(For the Camembert cheese brush with 1 tsp of the flavored oil)
3Tbs of fig spread

Flavored Oil:
Generous pinch of kosher salt
Generous pinch of red pepper flakes
1 Garlic Clove, thinly sliced
1 tsp of fresh rosemary
2 Tbs Olive oil

Combine the flavored oil ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.

Preheat the BBQ or grill to medium heat.

Brush the Brie cheese on both sides with the 1 tsp of plain olive oil.
Brush the Camembert cheese with 1 tsp of the flavored oil.

Place the cheeses onto a hot grill.

Cook on each side for about 2 minutes, or until there are slight grill marks on the rind of the cheese. (you don’t want to cook the cheese so much that the cheese melts out of the rind.) Use a spatula to flip the cheese.

While the cheese is cooking, prepare a platter for the cheese. On one end, use a spoon to spread a circle (slightly larger than the cheese) of the fig jam.