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My veggie kitchen heroes no 1 – halloumi

Halloumi bake
Nando's mango and lime peri peri sauce
Mild enough for my tastes, Nando’s mango and lime peri peri is the perfect partner for halloumi

I started this blog series several weeks ago (if you didn’t catch the first one, please read up here).  As the weather improves and barbeque season gets underway, I thought I’d post something about a personal favourite that’s also really great for cooking over the coals.

My first veggie kitchen hero is halloumi.  This Cypriot cheese really is a handy ingredient to have around.  Unopened in the fridge, it will keep for weeks and when you cook with it, absorbs flavours really well.  It’s naturally quite salty, delightfully squidgy and for a cheese, handles heat really well, meaning that it can be toasted, griddled or roasted – and it’s great on a barbeque (a meat juice free one, naturally).

Nando’s have a superb grilled mushroom and halloumi burger on their menu at the moment and inspired by this I recently acquired a bottle of their mango and lime peri peri sauce.  This was a fine acquisition and I can’t wait to slather it over a few skewers loaded with vegetables, lime wedges and halloumi chunks before slinging them on the barbeque or my stove top griddle pan.

If you’d prefer to make something from scratch, try roasting halloumi in a Mediterranean bake:

Halloumi bake
Chewy, salty, crunchy, a little sweet – this halloumi Mediterranean bake is always a welcome visitor to my table
  • Throw chunks of halloumi, two pieces of a quartered lemon, a few par-boiled potatoes cut into cubes, courgettes and a chunky cut red onion into a roasting tin with a couple of glugs of olive oil a little garlic and rosemary.  Season to taste (go ease on the salt) – then toss it all together to make sure it’s well covered.
  • To keep the carnivores happy, make the same thing in another tin with chicken thighs instead of halloumi (allow two, maybe three per person) and then multiply the ingredients in the vegetarian version above, depending on how many you are cooking for.
  • Roast the chicken version for a good 45 minutes at 200°c (180°c fan) or gas mark 6 for around 45 minutes, turning the ingredients over now and again to make sure the chicken is cooked through properly.
  • Roast the halloumi version for about 30 minutes, again turning it to make sure the halloumi doesn’t stick.

    Chicken Mediterranean bake
    The chicken version of the halloumi dish above for those who can’t quite drop the meat – it’s easy to cook both at the same time
  • To slip a little extra nutrition in with some wow factor, try crisscrossing your tray with some stalks of purple sprouting broccoli for the last 15 minutes.  Looks good, tastes good.

I cooked this for dinner only last night, chucking in a few plum cherry tomatoes off the vine five minutes before the broccoli.  The sweet, sticky sauce it created with the lemon was delightful.

And, I was informed by both my kids that next time they’d both like the halloumi version rather than the chicken.  Looks like my husband will be the odd one out for a change.

Most chicken drumstick/thigh recipes work well with halloumi.  It can stick to a pan if you’re not careful but oil it well and you shouldn’t have a problem.  Sticky, sweet flavours work really well but don’t go crazy with the salt – it’s already pretty salty and it’s easy for it to get overpowering.  It’s great with plenty of veg and because it’s already pretty substantial, you can go easy with the carbs, which is fantastic news for a carb-sensitive vegetarian like me.

I’d love to hear about your favourite halloumi recipes or if I’ve inspired you to try something new.

 

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My Veggie Kitchen Heroes

Everyone has their own signature dish they make for guests.  Whipping out a roasting tray or a griddle pan and grabbing some garlic from the fridge or Rosemary from the garden, it seems we all have go-to dishes that never fail to delight.

But what do you do if you are normally a meat eater and now have a vegetarian in your midst?  You’ve been Master at Arms in your kitchen for years and suddenly your teenager comes home one afternoon to announce that they are now veggie.  Perhaps you’ve found out your son’s new girlfriend doesn’t eat meat just after you’ve planned a huge Sunday feast or maybe a colleague is coming round for the first time for a Friday night barbeque and they need a vegetarian option.

Vegetarian scotch eggs
You can even make vegetarian scotch eggs – perfect for a picnic, a summer barbeque or a Christmas buffet.

I’ve known competent cooks to go to pieces and raid the freezer at Waitrose rather than come up with something homemade (and by the way, I’d eat anything veggie from the freezer at Waitrose any day) but if you’re looking to stir up something fabulous of your own creation, it’s not that arduous to remove meat from a meal without removing the flavour.  I’ve not eaten meat for nearly twenty years now and if there’s anything that sets off an attack of guilty ungratefulness at someone else’s dinner table, it’s the sight of a Quorn sausage next to my dauphinoise potatoes and butter sautéed baby veg, no matter how pretty they look.

But you don’t really want to be cooking two meals when you’re already under pressure, so welcome to my new blog series: Vegetarian Kitchen Heroes.

I thought I would start with some basics

If you’re cooking for a vegetarian there are a few really important things to remember:

  • Sounds obvious but please keep meaty utensils, plates and all other equipment separate.   Finding out that someone has put the chicken gravy spoon in with the mashed carrot and swede just causes sadness.
  • Not all veggies are cheese freaks.  Have a chat with your herbivore friend beforehand to find out what they like to eat and then head off to have a look at anything by Rose Elliot (she’s published about a million different cookery books and her website is really informative too) or the Vegetarian Society website.  I use the BBC GoodFood site a lot as well.

    Feta and walnut salad
    Easy on the carbs, even easier on the eye. A simple feta and walnut salad with shredded beetroot and lambs lettuce is great dressed with just a splash of olive oil and a little freshly ground pepper. Light, nutritious, perfect.
  • Vegan and vegetarian are two very different cuisines.  Cooking without any animal products at all can be a scary proposition but the vegan society have a vibrant and really rather helpful website.  Or rustle up a chickpea and coconut curry – rich, sumptuous and utterly comforting – I’ve made this BBC GoodFood version before and it’s delightful.
  • Check sauces, bottled ingredients and accompaniments.  Did you know that Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce contains fish, Muller Light yogurt contains gelatine (derived from animal collagen) and most authentic pestos contain cheese made from rennet (from animal stomachs)?  Five gold stars if you already knew all of this but it just goes to show that you need to check what you’re cooking with before you serve it up to a non-meat eater.
  • Easy on the carbs.  It’s very easy to cut the goodness, protein and beneficial fats from a meal when you cut the meat.  The last thing you want to be left with is a dull, stodgy mess so using nuts, wholegrains, cheeses, eggs and so many other great foodstuffs can round out a meal, making it wholesome and balanced.  Do your research and have some fun.
  • Go on, try a bit.  In fact, have a go at trying it once a week, or even for a whole week.  You’ll bump into new flavour combinations, textures you may not have come across before and who knows, maybe even a few extra vitamins and minerals.  My brother is a chef and he was impressed by just how much you can enjoy cooking  and eating when meat is no longer the main attraction.

The basics over and done with, I’ll share the ingredients I really love to cook with over the coming weeks.

Are you already a vegetarian and can add to my list, have you had any veggie cooking disasters or have you found the above helpful and fancy giving it a go?  Please share, I’d love to hear your comments.

Butter pie
Inspired by a Hairy Bikers recipe, this butter pie is as good as a winter pick-me-up with some bright salad as it is a picnic delight on a hot summer’s day – and completely meat-free.
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