Saturday 6 September 2014

Halloumi ...for the love of cheese


Survived the first week back! Behaviour of the children improved and after a sweat pant wearing, TV watching sofa fest, I'm ready for the weekend. Today I have another simple dinner treat to share.

Halloumi has to be one of my favourite cheeses but it's never tasted as good as this recipe. A simple marinade in orange zest and olive oil left for an hour. The cooked on a medium high heat in its marinade for 4 minutes on each side. A relevlation! I wander what other fruits add such a zing!

The rest of the dish consists of: -
1 aubergine (still in season)
8 plum tomatoes
couscous
1 red onion
1 tsp cumin seeds
150g broccoli
200g chick peas (from a tin)

Cook the couscous by pouring boiling water over it until it is just covered and leave for 10minutes. Cut the aubergine in half then in thick slices. Cover then in oil and leave to roast in the oven for 15minutes at 200C. Also roast the tomatoes for 10minutes after a little cover of oil. On a medium heat, warm 2tbsps of olive oil, add the onions and cumin and fry for 5minutes. Boil the broccoli for 4minutes and add to the onions. Quite a simple dish so far but what it turns it into a particularly delicious dish is the chermoula (a Moroccan marinade).

Chermoula: -
1tsp cumin seeds
2 tbsps corriander
2 tbsps parsley
3 garlic cloves
3 tsps paprika
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
zest of half a lemon and orange
olive oil

While the rest is cooking, put all the chermoula ingredients into a mini food processor, except for the oil. Blitz it up the add the oil slowly until it makes a paste. Simple and yum.
Finaly, put it al together; add the aubergine and tomatoes to the onion / broccoli mix. Add the chermoula and mix it all together with a sprinkle of fresh parsley. Serve together with the halloumi on top.

It is always good to have an easy and simple but flavourful recipe on hand for when you don't have much time to cook. This, I think, will become one of my new key recipes. Delicious.

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