halloumi pasta with lemon and mint

There are few things more pleasurable than biting into the yielding flesh of a thick slab of smoky halloumi taken straight off the barbeque, blistered brown by the heat and relinquishing all its salty wonder with every bite. 

Society is now relatively accustomed to this firm and squeaky cheese traditionally made with the milk from goats and sheep and originating from Cyprus; it’s frequently used as a meat substitute in burgers and on kebab skewers, added to salads or served with vegetables. It can be eaten straight off the knife but is also often found grilled, fried or barbequed due to its unique quality of form that lends itself so well to the cooking process – it’s a cheese that doesn’t melt, it just gets a bit softer.

My father is from North Cyprus, so growing up surrounded by the fabulous Cypriot and Turkish cuisine (as well as excellent Mauritian cuisine from my mother’s side), I’m probably more accustomed to this cheese than most. And I therefore know just how versatile it can be. 

As well as the above, it is also traditionally found incorporated into bread dough and one of my favourite ways of devouring it, with pasta. This dish is one from my childhood - one of those where I’d get overly animated when I knew it was on the menu for dinner. I’ve carried it through to adulthood, frequently returning to it and sharing it with friends who have almost unanimously fallen for it at first taste. It’s one of the simplest meals in my repertoire consisting of a mere six ingredients, yet yields one of the biggest pleasure bounties.

Combining flavours of both fresh and dried mint, chicken stock and lemon juice with the saltiness of the cheese, the result is a plate of pure satiety. Serving the cheese in its grated form allows each mint laden particle to mingle with the lemony chicken juices and coat every bit of pasta. 

To make this dish vegetarian, simply replace the chicken stock with vegetable stock. Excellent eaten either hot or cold the next day, it makes the perfect accompaniment to some left over roast chicken taken on a picnic. We now just need to wait for the weather to humour us.

Halloumi Pasta with Lemon and Mint

Serves 4

200g halloumi

400g whole wheat pasta

2 litres of ready made chicken stock (or three chicken stock cubes)

2 lemons

2 tbsp dried mint

A few sprigs of fresh mint

Finely grate the cheese and mix with the dried mint. Chop a handful of the mint leaves and set aside. In the meantime, cook the pasta in the chicken stock. If you don’t have ready made stock, use three chicken stock cubes in around two litres of water. The liquid should cover the pasta by an inch or so. 

If the liquid gets too low before the pasta is cooked, add a splash more. You want most of the liquid to have been absorbed by the end, but with some still remaining.

Layer some of the grated cheese and mint in an empty shallow bowl per person. 

When the pasta is al dente, ladle half a portion into the bowl along with a little of the stock. Sprinkle another layer of the grated cheese, top with some more pasta, and finish with the final layer of cheese. Sprinkle with a generous amount of the fresh mint.

Squeeze the juice from ¼ to ½ a lemon over each bowl (depending on how much your guests like lemon – I like it a lot), and serve with a few more wedges should they wish for more.

Alfiyet olsun.

turkish spring lamb with green beans

I’ve been doing a lot of writing recently. Which is great, because I don’t half love it. Sharing my dining experiences at restaurants I think the world and his wife should eat at, writing up my weekly Food Bites column for the website of my local paper (on which it seems I am yet to offend; that, or no one is reading it), informing the nation they’re mad for not liking sushi, and so forth. But it’s time intensive. Each piece is a process and a labour of love and to be frank, a pain in the arse in the firm grip of self-doubt. I can imagine it’s akin to the doting parent wanting their child to succeed academically, once they are able to exert the authority to stop said child running about with their pants down and a crayon up their nose. Each piece presents a certain amount of stress that needs to be managed and contended with. My personal process for a piece of food writing, with no applied science or order, goes something like this: find an interesting and relevant topic, conduct necessary research, think of an introduction angle, spew my thoughts into the glaring abyss of a blank white screen, realise I haven’t actually made a point, make a point, panic at required deadlines, apply a filter to discard the crap, find better ways to phrase sentences, get rid of more words, find better ways to say ‘delicious’, attempt and fail at humour, mutter inaudibly ‘this is really shit’, insert hyperlinks, edit photographs, contend with the wretched personality of Blogger’s formatting, proofread, remove more words and finally a good few hours later, I’ll submit. And I’ll do so with a sense of achievement, despite the aforementioned tribulations. Chaotic creativity at best. Ignored online fodder at worst.

These increased hours spent at the laptop of late have inevitably resulted in less time spent in the kitchen. I’ll often find myself writing about food, with self-inflicted hunger pangs due to the nature of the content, only to find I’m surrounded by a food void, a culinary abyss. I have coined this predicament The Food Writing Paradox - writing about food when the presence of anything decent to eat is absent in my immediate surroundings. Like shopping for food on an empty stomach, it is not advised. 

But I made a point this weekend to busy the fingers with a different activity and one that would result in stomach satiety. And here it is, a Turkish regular on the weekend dinner table when I lived with my parents. A one pot wonder perfect for when the hankering is for a light but hearty meal on a summers evening.

Turkish spring lamb with green beans

Makes 4 portions

600g lean diced lamb

500g potatoes, cut into bite-sized chunks

350g green beans

1 onion, diced

3 tbsp concentrated tomato purée

Meat stock (lamb or chicken), enough to just cover the contents

Olive oil

Juice from two lemons to serve

Top and tail the beans and then carefully split each one lengthways with a knife.

In a large saucepan or casserole dish, fry the lamb in a little olive oil until browned. Add the potato chunks, the halved green beans and the tomato purée and coat in the meaty juices for a couple of minutes.

Pour in your stock until the contents of the pan is only just covered. Season with salt and pepper and leave to blip away on a low heat until the lamb is tender and the potatoes and beans are cooked.

Serve in warmed bowls and with a tablespoon or so of lemon juice over each portion. Accompany with crusty bread to mop up the juice and a simple side salad of flat leaf parsley, cucumber and mint if you fancy it.

Afiyet olsun.