No. 50 - Cyprus - Warm Tomato and Halloumi Salad a.k.a Cheesy Symphony of Salad Sound

Q: What did the cheese say when it looked in the mirror
A: Halloumi

The halloumi (cold) (from having to take photo's) (your fault) squeaked. Not literally, in the same sense that mice squeak, more like in the sense that it was squeaky.  As in it squeaked its squeaky self between my teeth. We squeaked a sort of cheesy music together, a sort of salty salad symphony. 

Maybe it's because I'm home alone, jet-lagged/sleep deprived (dare I say it too warm), but I digged our cheesy symphony of salad sound. Although, I'm pretty sure that it's not mentioned in the recipe (and is not a guaranteed outcome.)

Warm Tomato and Halloumi Salad a.k.a Cheesy Symphony of Salad Sound 

                       

This is the part where I elaborate on how the halloumi (cheesy, lightly charred, meltingly firm) when paired with plum tomatoes ('oven blushed' with crushed garlic and herbs, left to intensify into delicious ticking 'tom-bombs') creates the most spectacular salad symphony of salty sweetness.

If you don't know, now you know.

Serves 1

100g halloumi cheese
250g of tomatoes
1 clove of garlic, crushed
baby lettuce leaves (or any kind of lettuce leaves actually)
100g green beans, trimmed
2 spring onions chopped
extra virgin olive oil
juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 red chili, sliced
herbs to garnish (I used tried and tested, parsley)
salt and pepper

Preheat the oven  to 180 degrees. Cut the larger tomatoes in half, then pop them all into a baking tray and toss with the minced clove of garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper and whatever herbs you have lying around. Roast for about 10 - 12 minutes.

Simmer the green beans in boiling water until tender. Drain and set aside.

Cut the halloumi into fingers. On a dry frying or griddle pan, char the cheese on both sides.

To the tomatoes add the green beans, chopped spring onion and the lemon juice.

Serve the tomatoes and beans on a bed of baby salad leaves with the charred halloumi arranged on top. Add a squirt of lemon juice and and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. Bish bash brilliant

No. 45 - Not So Cook Islands - Raw Ika Mata!

Parsley throwing frenzies, scraps of stripy fabric from Ikea and lemons. Food blogging 101.

This was an exercise into how to photograph your food, so that it doesn't end up looking like those laminated menus you find on holidays that have a lethargic photo of every single dish on the menu. It's amazing what a nasty strip light and the worlds slowest smart phone can do. A unique look behind the scene of the glamourous world of food blogging...

Beauty.

Ika Mata                                                                                                                       7/10

                                                                                                                

Ika Mata is like ceviche with coconut milk. Ceviche is raw fish cooked in lemon or lime juice. Because it's raw, get the freshest fish you can. I've done it here with tuna (because I love myself) but it will work with any type of firm fish. Perfect as a 'Late Late' snack.

250g fresh tuna, cut into chunks

Juice of 2 lemons

1 red pepper, finely diced

1 red onion, finely diced

handful of parsley, finely chopped

handful of mint, finely chopped

splash of tabasco, to taste

1/2 can of coconut milk

salt and pepper to taste

Add the tuna to the lemon juice and leave to marinate in the fridge for up to an hour. The smaller the chunks the less time it will take. The lemon juice actually cooks the fish so keep an eye on it. When the edges become to a whitish opaque colour (how it looks when cooked with heat) it's done.

Drain the tuna and mix with the remaining ingredients gently. Serve on toast, drink with wine and Tom Cruise. 

No. 16 - Bahrain and the Night of the Chicken Machboos!

Another home-house rendition of Culinisation. This time Bahrain brought together my family and the so-called WAG’s, who made the journey to Sligo last weekend for Buckfest 2011. On the night of the Chicken Machboos, the wine was certainly flowing. There was wine, emergency wine and then, emergency wine and beer for the emergency wine. Somewhere into the emergency wine for the emergency wine, as we sat huddled under blankets outside my house, we spotted a UFO (an unidentified fixed object). It was down by the water and it glowed with a grey/whitish light that suddenly went out. After some squeals and hand grasping, we noticed that the silhouette could still be seen, jutting up into the horizon. It’s difficult to say how much time passed before we plucked up the courage to, armed with our t-light lanterns, take a closer look.

I managed, against the girl’s better judgment, to wade through the sand, sludge and stones to discover what was, of course, a tree. This still doesn’t explain the light though. Da troot is still out there.

Chicken Machboos

Chicken Machboos (chicken and rice) has all the ingredients of a curry (every spice under the sun and some), yet its flavors are far more subtle. You can taste all of the spices because there is little or no heat to overpower them. I shouldn’t even call it a curry of course. If it’s a curry that you want, this is not it. If you crave fire, extinguished with an ice-cold beer, wait couple of days until Bangladesh. If you are sick of ordering curry’s that make you sweat buckets, eyes water and you can’t understand why anyone would ever endure such a burning pain for every mouthful, go with the Machboos.

Machboos is really simple to make and is essentially a heatless curry that has rice cooked in it, kind of like a biryani. Like with all of these eastern countries, you need a stocked spice rack, but if you don’t already have one, I would recommend going out and buy one of everything. You may think, what is the point in buying a certain spice when a recipe only requires a tiny amount? Trust me, if you buy them, you’ll use them for everything. Another perk is you’ll be able to make a variety of dishes in the future without having to buy many ingredients. All I needed to buy for this was chicken and some coriander. Not bad. You’ve got to love a one pot wonder too.

Another ingredient this recipe requires is buharat spice mix, which is unique to Bahrain. Turns out I went through the mix, and the ingredients in a buharat spice mix are spice for spice the exact same as your good old curry powder. This is one spice I wouldn’t bother buying especially for this dish.

Serves 5

5 chicken legs, cut into drumsticks and thighs

3 onions, finely chopped

enough curry powder to marinade the chicken

1 chilli, deseeded and chopped

a chunk of ginger, chopped

1 tsp. cumin

½ tsp. cinnamon

2 cardamon pods, whole

1 ½ tsp. turmeric

2 ½  cups of long grain rice

1 tin of chopped tomatoes

salt

5 cups of water or chicken stock. (I just threw in a stock cube)

juice of ½ lemon

oil for frying

lemon wedges to serve

coriander leaves to serve

In a large bowl, cover the chicken pieces with curry powder. Fry the chicken in a deep saucepan until browned on all sides and set aside. Fry the onion, ginger and chili in the remaining oil with all of the additional spices for a couple of minutes. Return the chicken to the pan with a tin of chopped tomatoes and a cup of the chicken stock or water. Simmer for 45 minutes over a low heat until the chicken is cooked.

Add the rice and remaining chicken stock or water to the pan and simmer until the rice is cooked. Stir in the juice of half a lemon. Serve with coriander, lemon wedges and chutney. Yum.