Bring forth the Holy Hand Grenade! September is here, and we’re cooking up our 2nd Movie of the Month: Monty Python and the Holy Grail! I’m a HUGE Monty Python junky, so I’m super excited for this menu. What better way to start it off than with holy hand grenades? These little beauties are white cheddar mini cheese wheels studded with peppercorns and chive, topped with a cross to give them that authentic Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch look. You can throw them at your enemies if you like, but we recommend eating them.

P.S. Can’t get enough cheese bite appetizers? Check out our Haycorns for Piglet or Savory Snitches.

Holy Hand Grenades

“Then did he raise on high the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, saying, ‘Bless this, O Lord, that with it thou mayst blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy.’ … Now did the Lord say, ‘First thou pullest the Holy Pin. Then thou must count to three. Three shall be the number of the counting and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither shalt thou count two, excepting that thou then proceedeth to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the number of the counting, be reached, then lobbest thou the Holy Hand Grenade in the direction of thine foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it.’”
— Monty Python and the Holy Grail

INGREDIENTS:

• 10 white cheddar mini cheese wheels
• 1 pack fresh whole chives (the thin ones work best for this)
• 30 whole black peppercorns
• 1 food marker (I used red, but any color except yellow should show up fine)
• You’ll also need some of those fancy cocktail toothpick swords (most grocery stores sell them next to the regular toothpicks)

Makes 10 grenades

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Unwrap your first few cheese wheels and remove the wax seals, so you’re just left with the cheese. We’re only doing a few at a time so the other cheeses don’t dry out before we get to them.

   

2. Take the end of a chive and place it slightly north of center on one side of your cheese wheel. Holding that end in place, pull the rest of the chive across to the other side. Trim it so that the length of chive is equal on both sides. Use the “hilt” of one of your toothpick swords to poke each end down into the cheese to secure it.
   
   

   Go deep—about halfway through to the center. You want it secure, but you don’t want to poke a hole all the way through your cheese.

   

   Once both ends are secure, the front and back of the grenade should look exactly the same.

3. Choose one side to be the front of your grenade. Lay another chive horizontally across the front of your cheese wheel (so it’s just covering the point where the vertical chive is attached). Wrap both ends around to the back, overlap them, and poke them down into the cheese just like you did with the first chive.
   
   

   This is the back. This side will be messier, since we’re trying to get a lot more chive into the cheese. The cheese is soft enough that you can even tamp some of it over the embedded chive to help keep it in place.

   

   At this point, the front should look like a squat, upside down “T.”

4. Press three peppercorns into the front side of your cheese wheel (one in the center just under the intersection of your chive pieces, the other two on either side of it with big gaps inbetween).

   

5. In the gaps between the peppercorns, use your food marker to draw circles.

   

6. Get out your cocktail swords (I only used red, but you can use any color you want). With a pair of kitchen scissors, cut about 1/2 an inch off the end of each sword.

   

7. Insert one sword into each hand grenade, right next to where the vertical chive goes over the side.

   

8. Place your finished grenades on a plate, cover them with plastic wrap, and refrigerate them while you work on you next few grenades. Keep making them a few at a time and placing the finished ones on the plate in the fridge until you’ve made them all.

   

9. Serve to killer rabbits to keep them from attacking your knights…just be sure to count to three first!