Midweek Comfort: Brie, Cranberry & Pear Toastie

The Brie-l Deal

(brie, charred pear, cranberry & salad leaves)

With rich, creamy brie, sweet pear caramelised on the griddle and the tang of cranberry, this is a rather grown-up toastie. An excellent time to break out the granary bread. I recommend you use a cast-iron griddle pan for this one, to get seriously sexy bar marks.

Serves 2

Ingredients
2 pears, as firm as you can get, cored and sliced into wedges
2 tbsp softened butter
4 slices of granary sourdough, 2cm thick
2 tbsp cranberry compote
100g brie, sliced
handful of salad leaves

Method
Place a cast iron griddle pan over a medium-high heat. Let it get nice and hot.

Place the pear slices gently on the griddle and don’t move them until you see them blackening and caramelising.

Meanwhile, spread the butter over the sourdough slices. Then turn over and spread the cranberry over two of the slices, on the unbuttered side. Top with the brie and charred pear slices, and cover each with salad leaves. Top with the other two slices of bread (butter side up) and lift into the griddle. Cook for 3-4 minutes, pressing down to get bar marks.

Once the bread is golden and the cheese is starting to melt, carefully flip to cook on the other side for 3-4 minutes.

Eat immediately.

Extracted from Melt It by Becks Wilkinson (Kyle Books, approx €10.50). Photograph by Tom Regester.

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