Salty & Sweet

Halloumi & Gooseberry Salad

Halloumi cheese makes one of tastiest salads you’ll ever find on your plate–it’s salty, tangy, and the perfect foil for fresh fruits and vegetables.  Like kasseri cheese–you may have come across that amidst leaping flames and a waiter shouting “Opa!”–halloumi is best consumed fried.  Made of goat and sheep cheese and occasionally seasoned with mint, it has a remarkably high melting point and stays so firm that it tends to squeak between your teeth.  It’s so unlike typical cheese, in fact, that you could probably trick a dinner guest into thinking it’s chicken.

To prepare halloumi, simply cut it in slices, then fry over medium-high heat.  Keep a close eye on it–although its firm texture will prevent it from oozing all over the pan, halloumi cooks in less than a minute.  Carefully flip the slices with a spatula and brown the other side as soon as you see a brown tinge appear along the edges of each slice.

This sweet-and-salty salad is a mix of fried halloumi, fresh mixed salad greens, and ripe gooseberries.  (You could also use grapes.) It’s rare to find purplish, ripe gooseberries–normally they’re picked green and sour and only used to make jam.  That’s a shame, really, because ripe gooseberries are similar to grapes in flavor, but with less of a  sugary taste.  I actually prefer them to grapes.  (Gooseberries also have thinner skins.)

The salad dressing is a simple splash of balsamic vinegar and another splash of extra-virgin olive oil.  If you’re good at eyeballing, you can drizzle them directly onto the salad; if you’d rather measure, use about 1 teaspoon of vinegar to about 2 teaspoons of oil.  Normally, I’d add sea salt to the dressing, but in this case, the halloumi is plenty salty enough to give the salad flavor.

Enjoy!

Tags: balsamic, cheese, gooseberries, halloumi, salad