Grilled halloumi boasts vibrant flavour combo
Salty cheese contrasts with sweet strawberries, hot pepper fresh herbs
The best summer recipes, like this one, are super-simple but vibrantly flavourful and colourful thanks to the freshest, readily available ingredients.
This recipe, from the aptly named Vibrant Food by Kimberley Hasselbrink, takes only minutes to prepare but wakes up your taste buds with the salty cheese, sweet strawberries, hot pepper and bright, fresh herbs.
Halloumi is a brined cheese made in Cyprus from sheep, goat or sometimes cow’s milk. You can find it beside the feta in most grocery stores. The Mid-East Food Centre on Belfast Road at St. Laurent Boulevard has always stocked it. Halloumi has a high melting point and can be grilled on the barbecue or cooked in a skillet — leading some gluten avoiders to consider it their solution to grilled-cheese sandwiches.
If you’re not avoiding gluten, though, serve this dazzling dish with a crusty baguette and a glass of sparkling Prosecco or rosé, and raise a glass to summer.
Agave nectar is available at most grocery stores and Davids Tea shops, but as one reviewer on the Epicurious website noted, you can drop the agave and add a touch of sweet balsamic vinegar instead.
“We could not stop eating (this dish),” that reviewer noted. “Taste kept changing from sweet to salty. Awesome.”