Category: halloumi

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cauliflower cheese food halloumi pumpkin seeds

jerk halloumi kebabs with cauliflower cous cous

jerk halloumi kebabs with cauliflower cous cous

To celebrate their range of spicy sauces, Heinz hosted a cook-off for me and a bunch of other foodie people. You could use sweet chilli, jerk BBQ, hot pepper, sriracha, or peri peri (you can see the sauces here). Surprisingly, I didn’t opt for a potato recipe.

I came up with jerk halloumi kebabs. I tried all the sauces but the sweet tone of scotch bonnets worked really well with salty, squeaky halloumi. Comforting, nutty cauliflower cous cous went with it and to soak up all that fire some cooling tzatziki-style yoghurt.

Hosted at L’atelier des Chefs‎, there was about 12 of us cooking different dishes. And how different they were! From spiced lamb to crab cakes, from sausage stews to stuffed peppers… there was such variety.

And all of this was to be judged by Celebrity Masterchef winner Lisa Faulkner! No pressure then. I toiled on and produced the dish, and I was pretty happy with it. It came our exactly as I planned. And here I am being judged!

She was very complimentary and loved the kebabs, but fair in that the cauliflower was a little on the plain side. In hindsight, some soaked, spiced apricots or similar running through it would have pepped it up a little.

And with feedback like that it was clear I wasn’t going to win. I was however thrilled that an old chum of mine May won, with her brilliant spicy chilli crab dish. Served on a large platter, diners pulled bit of crab off and chewed noisily at the shells. It was a real crowd-pleaser and a deserved winner.

I still like my dish and will be cooking it often as it’s an easy midweek dinner. The recipe’s below.

Thanks to Heinz for a fun night, and providing me spicy sauces to play with!

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jerk halloumi kebabs with cauliflower cous cous

Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

For the kebabs:

  • 500 g Halloumi
  • 1 red pepper
  • 1 red onion
  • Heinz Jerk BBQ Sauce
  • 1 clove garlic

For the cous cous:

  • 1 large cauliflower
  • 50 g mixed seeds (pumpkin, sesame etc)
  • 2 tablespoons dried onions
  • 300 ml natural yoghurt
  • 1/2 cucumber

For the yoghurt dressing:

  • Juice of half a lemon

Instructions

  • First the kebab prep: peel and dice the onion, dice the halloumi, and dice the pepper. Toss in plenty of Jerk sauce and set aside to marinate.
  • Preheat the grill to high, and a saucepan over a medium heat.
  • Skewer the cheese and veg. Pop under the grill and turn occasionally, brushing with more sauce.
  • Grate the cauliflower. Dry fry the seeds until golden and tip out to one side. Add a splash of oil to the pan and fry the crushed garlic for 30 seconds, then add the cauliflower.
  • While the cauliflower fries, grate the cucumber and squeeze out the excess water. Mix with the yoghurt and lemon juice and season to taste.
  • When the cauliflower is cooked add the seeds and dried onion's.
  • Serve the cous cous with two kebabs and dress with the yoghurt sauce.
Categories
aubergine balsamic vinegar courgettes halloumi

halloumi, courgette and aubergine with tomato vinaigrette

I was recently sent some recipes by Ocado written by Sophie Michell. Apparently they’re under the banner of “Tweet Yourself Thin”. I’m not entirely sure I got the concept of being tweeted recipes every day but I had halloumi, courgette and aubergine to use up so it hit me at the right time. And it’s refreshing, zingy and tasty. It’s intended to be a lunch dish but I added a wedge of baked polenta to pad it out a bit.

Halloumi, courgette and aubergine with tomato vinaigrette (serves 2):

250g halloumi

2 courgettes

2 medium aubergines

For the dressing:

2 ripe plum tomatoes, peeled

2 cloves garlic, minced

75ml extra virgin olive oil

25ml balsamic vinegar

1 pinch of caster sugar

1 tsbp of chopped fresh basil

  1. Slice the halloumi, aubergine and courgette into even slices. Heat a large griddle pan and griddle the veg on both sides until nicely charred.
  2. Blitz the dressing ingredients together and season to taste.
  3. When the veg is done, add the halloumi for 30 secs each side until slightly charred and warm. Serve immediately dressed with the vinaigrette and a splash more balsamic.
Categories
food halloumi polenta

crispy halloumi

Not much of a recipe here – cubed halloumi basted with egg, then turned in fine polenta, fried golden – but just yummy. You feel like you could eat a mountain of them. It turns out you get enormously stuffed after three.

Categories
food halloumi quinoa tomato

roasted tomatoes with quinoa

I’d never had a chance to try quinoa; the grain-like crop so prized by the Incas. A recipe presented itself so I tried it. I roasted some tomatoes in the oven until bursting, meanwhile I simmered some quinoa in water. Then I combined all of it with some sliced red onion and topped with grilled halloumi and fresh parsley.

The recipe was sound but the quinoa was a soggy disappointment. It was like cous cous but not as interesting.

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