Warm Halloumi cheese on greens with the surprise of pickled blueberries and pistachios.
Grilled Halloumi Salad with Pickled Blueberries and Pistachios
By Sue Lau | Palatable Pastime
It’s been a number of years now since I was first introduced to Halloumi cheese, that magical food of Cyprus that can be made sort of like grilled cheese (minus the bread). It always amazed me to no end how the cheese could stand up under the heat and not even melt into an unappetizing puddle. But it does.
There had been a particular recipe with halloumi cheese that was by chef Delia Smith that has capers and a lime vinaigrette. Someone had tried it as a salad version and I was really in love with it. Since that time, grilled halloumi as a salad has always been a favorite.
And not very long ago I also became a fan of pickled blueberries and loved having those on salads as well. Made with a hint of ground coriander, it has a very special flavor and using a blueberry vinegar for the pickling leads to an easy vinaigrette for the salad, which I made on baby greens with chopped pistachios and a touch of red onion as heat to balance the light sweetness of the berries.
This salad is one I think would be perfect for Mother’s Day, and while the pickling of the berries sounds complex, really it is not and the whole thing whips right up as long as you spare the time for the berries to pickle overnight.
Moms everywhere are going to be impressed.
This salad is both delicious and healthy, with blueberries being so chock full of antioxidants. And with Florida blueberries being in season right now, this is perfectly the right time to have a salad of this type.
And I am putting it together especially for a contest being sponsored by Wish Farms in promotion of the 2016 Food Wine Conference. Three winners of this contest will receive a variety of prizes ranging from prepaid Visa gift cards, to a reimbursement of the #FWCon pass (held at the Rosen Shingle Creek resort in Orlando Florida May 13-15), a flat of fresh blueberries, their recipe featured on the Wish Farms website, as well as being featured at a luncheon at the conference. What an honor that would be!
So naturally I am hoping to win, but really feel like I am a winner already when my husband gushes about how wonderful the salad was. It’s always a delight when someone really appreciates the effort I put into producing tasteful and delicious, healthy foods.
So I do hope I win so that everyone has a chance to taste it, and of course you can anyway if you try the recipe yourself. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do. Let me know in the comments how you like it. And wish me luck in the contest. If you are also interested in the contest, there is info on it here. But do hurry. The contest closes pretty soon!
Until next time (and I hope to see you at FWCon ’16!)
~Sue
Grilled Halloumi Salad with Pickled Blueberries and Pistachios
Marination time: 8 hours
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Serves 2 as a main dish salad or 4 as a side salad
Pickled Blueberries Ingredients:
- 1 cup fresh Florida blueberries
- 3/4 cup blueberry vinegar
- 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
Salad Ingredients:
- 7-8 ounces Halloumi cheese
- 4-6 cups assorted organic baby lettuces
- 1/2 cup thinly shaved red onion
- 1/2 cup toasted shelled chopped pistachio nuts
- 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
- salt and black pepper (to taste)
Method:
- Whisk together the blueberry vinegar, sugar, ground coriander, salt and black pepper and bring to a boil.
- Place fresh blueberries in a heatproof container (I used a canning jar) and pour brine over them. Cover and refrigerate 6-8 hours or overnight.
- Drain blueberries, reserving pickling vinegar.
- Slice Halloumi cheese into strips and heat over low heat in a nonstick skillet until golden, turning to brown all sides.
- Divide lettuces among salad plates, layering cheese pieces on top along with drained blueberries, shaved red onion slivers, and pistachio nuts.
- Whisk extra virgin olive oil into the pickling vinegar until emulsified, seasoning with additional salt and pepper to taste (if desired). Serve dressing over salad.
From the kitchen of palatablepastime.com
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