OK, so I am not as fru fru as this post might indicate. But it was the Oscars and the roomies were putting on a wine and cheesish affair, and so I thought I would rise to the occassion. Plus, I like to think I have a good mind for cooking and brie is one of the snobbish types of cheeses I really do enjoy. So without further adieu, here is a recipe for a compote for a baked brie.
I am not certain about the amounts, but just experiment. Ingredients can be all added in the beginning or save part of the fruit for adding later if you want some chunkier bits.
*8 oz. box of strawberrys, chopped in small pieces
*4 oz? box of blueberrys
*1/4 of a mango, an excellent way to get mango for cooking or eating is to slice off one side close to the seed and then take the resultant oval and score the firm yellow meat of the mango in a checkerboard pattern all the way down to the skin, and then push up from the skin side so that you should have something that looks like a yellow, blocky hedgehog, allowing one to easily cut off cubes of the divine fruit that is the mango. Oh yeah, and get a ripe mango. It should be pretty firm but not tight. The meat should be bright yellow/orange and not pasty white.
*water
*sugar to taste, you should test this throughout the cooking process
*red wine
*1/8 teaspoon of freshly and finely chopped ginger. I am in two minds about this addition, but it did give a nice zesty little bite. Not too much, though, or you will not like the bite at all.
*a little Promise margarine at the end, butter would work too. Not so much so as to make it greasy, but just a little to give it a pie-ish flavor
*salt to tast, you should not need much, but more if you don’t add the butter. Hey, it gives flavor. No matter if my friend Becky denies this and persists in baking saltless cookies. Her husband Kenn agrees with me, but then again he is a husband and so he supports her by eating her excellent, though saltless cookies. And for matter, I do too.
Let all this simmer and simmer until it reaches a compotish conistency and put it on your baking brie. A woman in my bible study noted that this would be even better with a brie in a pastry crust. Alas, that pastry business does exceed my culinary skills. At least as they currently stand.