Did you enjoy the post earlier in the week about Fried Halloumi Grilled Cheese? Here’s another veg-etarian Halloumi recipe guaranteed to tweak your taste buds and streamline your supper prep. And it’s super simple…
Vegetarian Halloumi Curry: Stressing to your dining audience that
the cubed stuff is NOT tofu may make it more acceptable to some…
It looks like you spent hours blending and simmering its exotic, aromatic, savoury curry sauce. And practiced over and over again prepping it’s star ingredient – fried Halloumi cheese. But it will actually take you less than half an hour – including cooking the rice to serve it over – to put this culinary work of art on the table.
Leveraging your advantages
We also revealed last week that many authentic Asian home cooks use jarred or bottled supermarket cooking sauces to streamline their kitchen prep. We’re going to more than halve the time and effort it would take to make today’s dish by using a prepared, supermarket-sourced cooking sauce to ‘curry-fy’ it.
You can also, seamlessly, substitute Indian Paneer (or medium-soft tofu) for the Halloumi cheese without negatively affecting the flavour or texture. All three are virtual ‘blank canvases’ on which mil-lions of cooks have painted their own culinary masterpieces.
The BIG secret we’re sharing today is, the little things can make a big difference in the success of your dishes – in spite of how simple the recipes are.
What to keep…
Looking over today’s source recipe, take particular note of some of the fresh ingredients: the cheese, the garlic, the lemon (zest and juice), and, especially, the fresh coriander.
Make sure you use these ingredients as directed, even if you employ a jarred, prepared curry cooking sauce for the base of the curry. The fresh lemon and coriander, in particular will give your dish a spe-cial ‘fresh punch’ – an added dimension of flavour – that elevates it above the daily ordinary!
My take
One hint that can make your dining audience’s reception of this Indian-style classic is… Stress the fact that the cubed stuff is ‘cheese’, rather than tofu. Compulsive, reflexive tofu-refusers will at least be comfortable enough to try it. And the flavour will tell them instantly that it really ISN’T tofu, after all.
We’ll be showcasing more vegetarian (and some vegan) dishes in the coming days and weeks to demonstrate how easy – and delicious – it is too ‘eat plant-based’…
~ Maggie J.