A treasure from Coles Magazine + halloumi
We had a small dinner party last night - we have some interstate visitors - and as a first course I chose to make this beautiful looking dish which seemed to me to be a bit different - BBQ halloumi with strawberry salsa. And indeed it was and it was also absolutely delicious, so delicious that David said I should use it as my blog subject for the day. He was very surprised when I told him that the red was strawberries.
My effort, amazingly, looked much like the published 'official' version. The link to the recipe is above, but let me add a couple of things to what it says there. Because I wanted to be doing as little as possible at the last moment I prepared most of the components of the salsa ahead of time. However, I did not chop and add the strawberries until the last moment. I'm not sure whether it would have mattered or not, but I thought they should probably be as fresh as possible. Also although I chopped the herbs beforehand I did not add them to the salsa - I wrapped them separately in glad wrap and then just added them at the last moment. Also, because David doesn't like hot chilli, I just used a mild red chilli. The heat of the chilli you use is entirely up to you. The most important thing though is the halloumi. I used a griddle - a beautiful le Creuset one that I have had for decades. However, I disregarded their advice and oiled the griddle rather than the cheese. The cheese stuck to the griddle, and it was difficult to remove, because of the griddle ridges, so I lost some of the crusty outside. On reflection I think it might have been better fried with perhaps a light dusting of flour. The image was covered up by the salsa lthough. The salsa was really, really tasty and the whole thing was very quickly put together. I shall make it again.
Halloumi is a Cypriot cheese, though it's found throughout the eastern end of the Mediterranean. When you buy it you think it looks a bit like white rubber but it is really super when cooked. It stays firm, unlike most other cheeses when cooked. The Greek saganaki is the most well-known version of this.
But if you want to know what else you can do with it go to SBS for an absolute treasure trove of suggestions or else just google halloumi and Guardian, or the name of your favourite cook. It is obviously very versatile.
There are also various recipes for making it, but they do involve rennet - and I'm not sure where you can get that - a health food shop perhaps, maybe the supermarket, but I don't think so. It's a pretty simple process though and apparently fun to do with children.
It originated in Cyprus in the medieval Byzantine period, and is traditionally made from unpasteurised sheep and goat milk, but nowadays cow's milk is also sometimes used. There were no cows in Cyprus way back then. In fact Cyprus has been slow to get an appellation controlée for it because they are still arguing about what kind of milk can be included. How stupid. It is made by heating the milk with rennet which separates out the curds. The curds are then sprinkled with mint, and folded into a semicircle which gives it the distinctive split in the middle. Some of my slices completely split in half. Traditionally the cheese kept better if wrapped in mint leaves, but nowadays the tradition is continued by just sprinkling it with mint - I suspect dried mint.
It can then be kept in a brine made from salting the whey. If you want to know more detail go to Wikipedia. Of course.
To my mind the cheese itself is a bit tasteless, and the texture still a bit rubbery when cooked - they say it squeaks on your teeth when eaten - but just because of that - a bit like chicken - you can pair it with all manner of different and surprising things. It's very fashionable and available on your supermarket shelves now - both real Cyprus stuff or home brand (which may also come from Cyprus for all I know).
