Stitch and Bear

A long-running Irish blog with reviews of the best restaurants in Dublin and throughout Ireland. Some wine and cocktails thrown in for good measure!

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Grilled Halloumi & Slow-Roast Tomato Salad

It's been a beautiful bank holiday weekend here in Dublin, and my household (all two of us) has been very inspired by all the lovely food we've been seeing and tasting lately. Today's supper snack was a perfect example of how to use ingredients that you may have lying around in your fridge. In our case, it involved some halloumi cheese, rocket, some vine-ripened cherry tomatoes and a yellow pepper.

Slow-roasted tomatoes
Last night, we slow-roasted some lovely large cherry tomatoes. This inolved halving the tomatoes, drizzling them with some olive oil, sea salt & black pepper. For a little extra flavour, some freshly ground fennel seeds were sprinkled on about half of the tomatoes. These were then placed in a pre-heated, low oven (about 100 - 120 Celsius) for about an hour, or until they had shrunk and somewhat resembled sun-dried tomatoes. The end result is a wonderful, condensed blast of tomato flavour that you can keep in your fridge for a few days. They make wonderful additions to salads, cheeseboards or fancy sandwiches. 


Grilled halloumi salad
Grilled halloumi is a really fantastic starter dish. I prefer to fry it (rather than grill) as I feel that the improved heat distribution from frying results in a better texture. However, the choice is entirely yours.

Warm up a heavy pan (cast-iron skillet in this case). From a block of halloumi, cut slices that are about 3-5mm in thickness. Drizzle a little olive oil on the slices, and fry in the pan until both sides are golden and the cheese has melted slightly. Remove from the pan and rest on some kitchen paper for a minute.

Serve with a green salad of your choice. In the picture below, we used rocket leaves, a mix of fresh and slow-roasted cherry tomatoes and some thin slivers of yellow pepper. This was dressed with some olive oil and a small dash of balsamic glaze. 

Share:

No comments

© Stitch and Bear | All rights reserved.
Blogger Template Developed by pipdig