A few years ago on Top Chef (one of my absolute favorite TV shows that has completely inspired the foodie in me over the last few years) a contestant won a BBQ challenge by serving grilled Halloumi cheese with her dish. Now, grilling is still very much beyond me - flame + small apartment is not math that I want to have to work out; but the Halloumi, it’s milky goodness coming off a GRILL without melting, intrigued me.
Last year, just because it is so close, a friend and I flew to Cyprus for a weekend. Lovely island, Cyprus. Great wines, best moussaka I’ve ever had and, at almost every meal, some Halloumi - the squeaky, un-melty cheese of Top Chef legend.
I loved Halloumi and have been playing around with it lately. It’s not cheap, but not too expensive either, here in Cairo. I’ve eaten it as a side dish in Cyprus and Turkey, but never on bread or as a central part of my dish. I’ve experimented with melting it in to an omelet (no go, but in the experimenting, I did discover goat cheese and asparagus is my new favorite omelet combo), and putting it on chicken - but as it doesn’t really melt, that hasn’t worked. A friend used it on veggie kabobs on the grill, and that was great. I pan fry it and serve it myself as a snack and a side all the time, but can’t find a way to work it in with a meat protein.
Still though, as a side dish, it ranks very, very high on my list of things I like with eggs, potatoes, pasta, lamb, and even just a glass of wine.
Suggestions on what else I should do with it?
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
About Us
- Heba and Fada
- Cairo, Egypt
- As a child Fada was deprived of colourful eatables but learnt to cook for her family and discovered the joys of not-white-food. Believing that you are what you eat, that the body is a precious gift, and that good eating habits can prevent many ills, she delights in putting together concoctions old and new - from peach crumble and chocolate cake to quiche and parmagiano.
Heba and Fada tend to cook separately - Fada loves Heba's guacamole (and the margaritas that usually accompany it!) and Heba loves Fada's aubergine (or eggplant, as Heba calls them); but they have cooked together as well. The evening where Heba made US pancakes and Fada made European crepes went down a treat with their friends!
Heba Habibte is an American foodie living in Egypt. She has cooked Thanksgiving Dinner in Cairo, Egypt, Guatemala City, Guatemala and Bologna, Italy, but never in the U.S.
FEEDJIT Live Traffic Feed
Labels
fall
(1)
fresh
(1)
fruit
(1)
purpose food memories why we are here
(1)
soup exchange fall
(1)
turkey
(1)
turkey thanksgiving fall
(1)
No comments:
Post a Comment