In the days before babies and suburbs, Brett and I would use deep fried brie as a motivator for an evening stroll. There is a great little restaurant, located in the heart of Toronto’s Little Italy, named Utopia that offers ‘Crispy Brie Cheese’ on their menu. The restaurant was perfect walking distance from our apartment and the crispy, gooey cheese treat always seemed worthy of dropping everything for.
The Utopia menu describes their dish as ‘brie wrapped in rice paper and served with raspberry coulis’. For my version, I’m using spring roll wraps to roll the brie with and dipping it into my grandmother’s homemade cranberry sunflower chutney. See, life is still decadent in the suburbs, and the 200 calories each of these brie bundles offer are all the motivation I need to get outside and walk.
Deep-Fried Brie (Happy Friday!)
You will need:
- 1 package spring roll pastry (find this in the frozen food section of you grocery store, likely with the Chinese dumplings)
- 1 wheel of brie (small for 2 people, large for more)
- 1 cup vegetable or canola oil
- raspberry jam, cranberry sauce, or another dipping sauce of your choice
Cut your brie wheel diagonally, making 1/4" thick slices. Yes, leave the rind. There is great flavour in the outer rind and the texture is lost once fried. I topped some of these with the cranberry chutney and a basil leaf but really preferred them with just the cheese best.
Place the cheese in the corner end of one sheet of spring roll pastry, roll twice, fold in the left edge.
Fold over the right edge and roll the rest of the way closed. Set aside seam side down.
With your plate of delicately wrapped brie bundles, heat your oil in a heavy-bottom pan at a medium heat. You want to see bubbles starting to form along the edge before adding your brie.
Don't crowd the brie bundles, fry each side for about 3 minutes, until golden brown. Remove with chop sticks or kitchen tongs and let rest on a plate topped with paper towel to absorb excess oil.
At this point your internal voice will start to question whether or not you should be indulging on such rich fried food. Don't worry, your stomach-eye-brain combo will quickly shut it down and scream, "Yes! YES! Give it to me now!"
Warm and crunchy on the outside and perfectly melted on the inside, this is the perfect prize to reward yourself after another work week accomplished. Plus, by dipping it in antioxidant-rich cranberry sauce and stacking them on fresh green, it's kind of healthy. Not really. Actually, not at all. Sorry. Enjoy! xo
So easy! I think we all deserve a little fried cheese every now and then!!!
I couldn’t agree more, Stefanie!
Fried cheese… yum!
Oh wow. That looks delicious!