Cheese - Fired haloumi

An unqualified success! I did make cheese. In fact I made a cow's milk version of haloumi.

Fresh (cow's milk) haloumi looks like this...


After running it through a menu that went something like this...

Pan fried bovine haloumi in garlic and fennel seed infused Italian olive oil with pistachio nuts, shallot, mushroom and tomato, on a bed of baby spinach with fresh cracked black pepper and a drizzle of lemon juice.

and it looked something like this...



And it was good. I would have been quite happy had I been served it in a restaurant. The only thing that could have made it better was to share it.

And I did...



I throughly recommend you give homemade haloumi a go. For the most part, the temperatures are all child friendly, so get some kids involved. It was much easier than I expected and I can't see much that could go wrong.

Total cost to make the cheese in Australian dollars was $4.39 in un-homogenized milk and a few cents worth of rennet.

Total time was around 3 hours. But with only a few minutes actual work. It's also worth noting that a larger batch would take no longer to prepare. I can see no problem with freezing this cheese.

I will definitely be making this cheese again and again.

Lastly I think I read somewhere that traditionally its stored in mint leaves. True or not, I put some mint into the container of cheese and it successfully imparts a subtle mint flavour that compliments the cheese nicely. I've also had it cooked with fennel leaves to excellent effect.

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