Thursday, January 17, 2008

Queso de Freir

I've been reading about Halloumi cheese for quite some time and have been keeping an eye out for it. As I was meandering my local Super Walmart this week I found this:



I had to buy it--could it mean that I could enjoy a breadless cheese stick?

I cut two slabs and fried them in olive oil last night. After learning that a good bit of oil was needed (about 1/4 cup), it fried up crisp.



The taste was good--salty and warm without being gooey. (Though there's something to be said for gooey cheese.) It's not really smooth--sort of a stringy texture. Very soft and moist. I think that frying slices didn't do it justice, because there wasn't a lot of cheese between the crusty sides.

This would be really good cubed and fried, tossed warm onto a salad.

It's not as good as a breadstick, but certainly does approximate the texture and 'mouth feel' well enough.

7 comments:

Amanda said...

Update: I fried up another batch--well, the rest of the block, actually. But this time I cut it into sticks, sort of like a cheese-stick. They were MUCH tastier this time, and creamier.

This will a regular addition to my shopping trips. What a great treat to have on hand!

Robin said...

If you ever see Greek Haloumi cheese, it too is meant to be fried and is delicious.

Anonymous said...

Cheese is my downfall. That and bread. I blame it on my extra 10 pounds.

Robin said...

I obviously don't read carefully enough. I just saw now that you'd mentioned Haloumi right in the first line. Whoops.

Amanda said...

Quite alright, Robin! I look forward to trying Halloumi... if I can ever find it!

Lulu, I also love cheese--and bread! Fortunately I can HAVE cheese. Bread, well, that's an affair I'll have to continue from afar for now.

Anonymous said...

I find haloumi at a Armenian market in LA called Whole Foods for Life. You can also find it at Wholefoods... its twice as expensive though! try any sort of mediteranean shop first

Amanda said...

Hi, Lilly. Thanks for the tips. I live in a very small and somewhat isolated community in central upstate NY--you can't even imagine...

Our one local Greek restaurant that doesn't offer Halloumi! I think that's just crazy.

But I've been asking around for halloumi so hopefully someone will start carrying it soon.

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