Tag Archives: cheese

Arabic Mezze

While I’m enjoying the time in my home-country, in Dubai is the month of Ramadan. It’s one of the important months for Muslims; during the month they are fasting (no food or drink) during the daytime. Traditionally, it’s normal to brake the fast with dates before Iftar. Iftar includes buffet tables with a large variety of dishes.

Mezze is a selection of small dishes, appetizers served before the main course in many countries like Turkey, Lebanon, UAE, Syria, Greece, Cyprus. There are vegetarian, fish or meat mezze. Arabic-style mezze platters often include marinated olives, fresh herbs such as mint and zaatar, labneh (thick yogurt), halloumi cheese, kofta (meatballs) and many others. I guess, almost everyone is familiar with classic hummus – pureed chickpea dip. I do like this tasty dip, it’s wonderful with roasted chicken or lamb kofta, or simply with bread. But this time I made unusual hummus -with roasted red bell peppers and pomegranate molasses; it turned out so delicious! I served the hummus with Arabic pita bread, olives and baked halloumi cheese.

Halloumi cheese is another tasty appetizer, which is pretty popular in Middle Eastern cuisine. Baked halloumi with touch of honey and thyme makes wonderful snack. Serve it warm with bread or salad.

Arabic Mezze: Roasted red pepper hummus & Baked halloumi

Servings: 4-6
Time: 1hr
Difficulty: easy
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Roasted red pepper hummus

Adapted from BBCFood

Ingredients

2 large red peppers

1 tbsp olive oil

1 shallot or 1/2 small brown onion

1 small garlic clove, chopped

1 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp paprika (plain or smoked as you like)

1 can (400g) chickpeas, drained and rinsed

2-3 tbsp fresh chopped coriander

1 tbsp lemon juice

1 tbsp orange juice

2 tsp pomegranate molasses (or add more lemon juice)

1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

sea salt and freshly ground black/white pepper, to taste

Preparation

Cut peppers into halves and place them onto lined baking tray under the grill for 15 minutes, or roast covered in foil in preheated 180C oven for 30 minutes. Remove their skins.
In a small frying pan, heat olive oil, add onion and fry over medium heat for 3-4 minutes, add garlic and cumin and saute for a minute more.
In a food processor, add peppers, fried onion, paprika, chickpeas, coriander, lemon and orange juices, molasses if using and pulse several times. Add extra virgin olive oil, and blend again. Season to taste.
If you want to make the hummus thiner, add a couple of tablespoons of water.
Serve with Arabic bread, pita, crackers or your favourite bread.

Baked Halloumi

Ingredients

200g halloumi cheese

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp liquid honey

1/2 tsp dried thyme

1 tsp black sesame seeds

Cut halloumi into slices. Place onto baking tray lined with baking paper or foil.
Mix all other ingredients. Pour over cheese.
Bake in preheated 200C oven for 10 minutes or under the grill until just begin to brown.

Mini Appetizer: Goat Cheese Balls

Goat cheese must be the most controversial cheese. One does like it, another hate. What about you, dear reader? Do you like goat cheese or its odour is too pungent for you?

Whatever you goat cheese stance, I suggest you to try it! May be you will find you earthreal cheese! 🙂

I couldn’t find a good goat cheese, when I lived in Russia, there was no any variety even in supermarkets. You could find the goat milk, which was sold by farmers in the countryside, but usually only milk, they didn’t produce any goat cheese. There were plenty of soft and hard farmer cheeses but made from cow milk. Thus many people haven’t try goat cheese. Of course the situation has changed now.

I was amazed how many goat cheeses are sold in Dubai: fresh, soft and creamy, aged, etc, which are brought here from Europe (usually from France).

Once I watch a food-show and chef made a salad with mini cheese balls, covered with parsley. I liked the idea.. After several days I created my own appetizer to impress my guests.

It looks like a gourmet appetizer, and it’s certainly good if you don’t want to hang around the kitchen for hours. 😉

Mini Appetizer: Goat Cheese Balls

Servings: 5-6
Difficulty: easy
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If you want to make it ahead of time, you can roll the balls and roast beetroots 1 to 2 days beforehand.

Ingredients:

150g soft goat cheese (I used honey-flavoured)

1 Tbsp cream cheese

a pinch of sea salt

1/3 tsp white or pink pepper, freshly ground

1-3 Tbsp walnuts, finely chopped

1-3 Tbsp fresh thyme, sage, flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped

1-2 small beetroots

1-2 small tomatoes

Dressing:

1 Tbsp olive oil

1/2 tsp wholegrain mustard

1/2 tsp liquid honey

Method:

Wash and clean beets, cover with a foil and bake in preheated oven 200C/400F for 30-45 minutes, depends on the beets’ size.
Cut the beets and tomatoes into equal circles, and arrange them on a serving plate.
In a bowl combine goat and cream cheeses along with salt, pepper and walnuts. Spoon cheese mixture and form into balls (you can use table or teaspoon, depends on a size of your choice).
Gentle roll the balls in herb mixture, coating well. Place onto vegetables.
Serve immediately (with fresh arugula or young chard leaves, if desired), or cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.
Optionally, you can make a dressing and pour over cheese balls and salad.

TIP: You can add 1-2 fresh or dried finely chopped figs into the cheese mixture.

I’m bringing this dish over to FF tonight! Hopefully, someone has brought a good bottle of wine.. 😉 And don’t forget to bring the good mood to the party!

ENJOY!

Cabbage casserole with farmer cheese

White cabbage is widely used vegetable in Russia, it’s eaten raw in salads, pickled to eat during the winter and braised in various stews.

Nowadays it’s pretty popular to eat healthy dishes, such as cauliflower soup, sautéed Brussels sprout, fish with broccoli and etc. It seems like everybody forgets about this simple beauty – the white cabbage.

Even Greek philosopher Pythagoras said: “It is a vegetable, that helps to have a courage and cheerful mood”. In ancient Russia it was a belief, that if one has a headache, they should cover their temples with cabbage leaves to release the pain.

The below recipe is a very simple dish with a modern twist, using fresh ricotta and your favorite cheese. It could be eaten alone or as a nice side dish. A must try! 🙂

Cabbage casserole with farmer cheese

Servings: 4
Time: ~2h
Difficulty: not too tricky
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Adapted from Russian magazine ‘The school of gastronomy’

Ingredients:

400-500g white cabbage, thinly sliced

1 small onion, sliced

100-150g fresh homemade ricotta/cottage cheese/farmer cheese

60g any grated cheese + 1Tbsp for the top (Emmental/Gouda/Red Cheddar)

1Tbsp Parmesan cheese for the top, optionally

2 big or 3 small eggs, whites and yolks separated

40g butter

50g flour

400ml milk (preferably low fat)

2Tbsp bread crumbs, homemade

pinch of nutmeg, cumin

1Tbsp fresh chopped dill or 1tsp dried

salt, white pepper to taste

1Tbsp olive oil+1Tbsp butter for frying

Preparation:

1) First, make the sauce. Melt the butter in a small saucepan and turn the heat to low. Sift the flour into the butter, stirring continuously to combine them. Add the milk a little at a time. Cook for 8 minutes more, stirring continuously until the sauce becomes thicker. Remove the saucepan from the stove and let it cool.

2) Meanwhile, put olive oil, butter and onion in a pan, and fry for 4 minutes. Add cumin and fry for 1 minute more.

Add the cabbage, sprinkle with dill and stir fry for 10-15 minutes. Transfer the cabbage into big bowl.

3) Add egg yolks into the sauce, one at a time, nutmeg and combine thoroughly.

4) Pour the sauce into the cabbage, add cheese, ricotta, salt, white pepper and give it a good stir.

5) Beat egg whites with a pinch of salt until foamy, then carefully combine with cabbage mixture.

6) Grease the baking pan with butter, sprinkle with bread crumbs, add the cabbage mixture and sprinkle with cheese. Bake in preheated oven 180C/360F for 40 minutes.

7) Serve warm. Enjoy!

Onion cookies with cheese and chilli

The springs has finally come bringing more sunny days, birds sing their songs, flowers are blossoming and days are becoming longer. Sun is shining and my living room now is full of light, all nature is preparing for the hot summer. I love this time of the year when it’s still comfortable to sit and walk outside in the evening, when it’s not cool but not hot yet.

I’be been busy last days and I’m sorry for being away, days were full of life or laziness; my dearest friends came from Russia and despite they brought a huge bag of sweets, I made meringues with coconut and nuts, which were eaten immediately.

And I almost missed the awesome party, on Fridays as usual, at Angie’s place with such amazing co-hostesses as Jhuls and Selma. But ‘it’s better late than never’, isn’t it?

So, I want to serve these hot and delish onion cookies to y’all! 😀

I’m pretty sure you will be absolutely amazed how well they go for a breakfast! Delicious and flavoured with chillies, which are super boosters, they will help you to wake up quicker than regular mug of coffee!

This is a very simple recipe to make and you just have to mix the ingredients and form cookies in the round shape right on a baking sheet. Bake the onion cookies for about 20 minutes and they will be gooey, firm and bursting with incredible flavour.

The recipe itself has undergone a number of changes since I made cookies for the first time, because there is always no limit to perfection. And the result is beautifully browned and great tasted cookies!

I’m using whether spring onion or leek, whatever is available at the moment of cooking, both are suitable and pretty good for this recipe.

Onion cookies with cheese and chilli

Servings: 3-4
Difficulty: easy
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Cookies should be served piping hot!

Ingredients:

130g flour, self-raising

50-60g butter, cold and cut into small cubes

3 tbsp corn flour

a good pinch of salt

1/3 tsp freshly ground black pepper

1/2 tsp crushed chilli flakes

70g grated cheese (Red Cheddar or Red Leicester)

180ml single cream or laban

1 tbsp cream cheese

2 tbsp parsley, finely chopped

1 leek or 4-5 spring onions

1/2 tbsp butter for frying

Sour cream, creme fraiche or yoghurt for garnish

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 200C/400F.
Chop the leek or spring onions, stir fry very lightly in butter for 3-4 minutes.
Combine the butter with flours, salt and peppers.
Stir in parsley, onion and cheese.
Pour the cream or laban into the batter and mix well.
Spoon out heaping tablespoon of batter and lay on the ungreased cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.
Sprinkle with some extra chilli flakes, if desired.
Bake for 17-20 minutes until golden-brown.
Serve the cookies hot and optionally with sour cream.
Enjoy!

Winter cake with red berries

Red berries and cheese make this cake a frequent guest on my table during the winter. 😀 It looks gorgeous and tastes delicious! Perfect for holiday season!