Steemit Iron Chef 2018 Act 01 Round 08 : Baked Brie with Grape Compote

For this week's SIC contest the theme ingredient is grapes. I'm mostly not interested in deserts, but I was thinking about a sorbet if I could find "good" grapes. But it's the wrong season in this hemisphere and all that were available were good-enough grapes. I wanted to extract a really 'grapey' flavor without cloying sweetness, so I needed some fat and savory elements.

It's rough to compete with brie, but the grape compote is the star of this plate. I ground red and green grapes, raisins and cognag together in the food processor and then simmered it down for half an hour. As noted, this was pretty sweet. The fat from the cheese was good, but I needed some herbal, spicy elements. So I topped the brie, before baking with a mixture of ground chiles, herbs and citric acid. Then I served it with a whole-grain sourdough, slightly baked Marcona almonds, and fresh grapes. Here's everything but spices:

Note, the brie has no rind. It's a fresh cheese instead of aged, so baking it is a little different. Doing it in a ramekin would have made sense, but I didn't trust turning it out for my plating plans. I baked it on parchment and just slid the blob onto the plate. It contrasted really well with the red plate, but then that sort of got lost with the moat of ruddy grape compote. (I should have use a white plate...live and learn!)

Also, you can see the savory sprinkle on the cheese (there was more, but it slipped down as the corners of the wheel melted into a surrounding pool. It was good, but I'll add more next time. I also might hit the compote with dash of shoyu or stir in some light miso to add umami without letting it dominate.

Another proof photo:

And some closeups:

As simple as this dish was to prepare -- the compote was the only real cooking, it was incredibly popular. I served it as an appetizer before veggie-burgers and my daughter was over the moon. She claims that we've never made baked brie, but it's hard to imagine that's true (she's sixteen) -- maybe she just liked it better this time or forgot. Anyway, she's already suggested that brie would go well with apples. :-)