We were at a family's home for a brunch one morning several months back and ate fried cheese. We thought it was delicious and proceeded to buy halloumi cheese (English rendering of this name is from Arabic) and fry it at home on occasion.
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| Photo credit: squidoo.com |
Last night, we had roasted vegetables with halloumi cheese. As I sliced up the cheese and fried it, it occurred to me that the cheese was not melting. I don't know why I only just now noticed it after several times of frying the cheese. How does the cheese not melt?
Curious, I looked it up. That was when I was surprised to discover that it was actually goat/sheep cheese. Halloumi cheese originated out of Cyprus (there used to be no cows on the island until the the British brought cows over in the 20th century) and was initially made in the Byzantine period (A.D. 395-1191) and gained popularity in the Middle East region. The high melting point comes from the fresh curd being heated before being shaped and placed in brine. Apparently, the Cypriots like to eat grilled halloumi cheese with watermelon. I guess it's not different from feta cheese with watermelon, a trend that I've heard of in the States.
Speaking of feta, we love feta so much that we use only feta as dressing for our salad and G puts feta in his scrambled eggs most mornings. Feta is super cheap here and it's expensive in the States, alas. This is just a side note, since we were talking about cheese. Just random and unimportant.
I never thought I'd ever get the opportunity to drink goat milk and eat goat cheese. Much less a type of cheese that has been around since the fourth century A.D. It's just cool.
I just wrote a post about cheese. I mean, really?
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