Warm Salad of Seasoned Grilled Halloumi and Victoria Plums

Whenever I try to explain the texture of halloumi to someone who's never tasted it before, more often than not, I get a puzzled look. Squeaky cheese? I must admit that when I first heard about halloumi, I also wasn't that enthusiastic about trying it- but like a true gourmet, I didn't hesitate to buy some when it first became available here. Now it's become one of my favorite cheeses! There are so many ways to serve it and so many flavors you can pair it with. Plus...what's better than a slice of grilled cheese?

A visit to the produce stall at the market last Wednesday inspired me to make a gorgeous, warm salad using victoria plums and halloumi. The halloumi was first drenched in a dressing before being grilled. The dressing consisted of good olive oil, lemon juice and one of my favorite spice mixes- Bed of Roses, which includes saffron, ginger, cumin, roasted garlic and rose petals. Both the halloumi and the plums are grilled in this salad. Just before serving, the dish is sprinkled with tiny mint leaves and finished off with a light drizzle of olive oil and a pinch of fleur de sel. For maximun enjoyment, each forkful should contain a little cheese, a bit of the warm fruit and perhaps a little mint leaf.

Here's the recipe:

Warm Salad of Seasoned Grilled Halloumi and Victoria Plums

*3 victoria plums
*3 slices halloumi of about 40g each
*1 tbsp good-quality olive oil, plus extra to drizzle
*2 tsps lemon juice
*1 tsp Bed of Roses
*mint leaves and fleur de sel to serve

Whisk oil, lemon juice and spice mix and transfer to a shallow bowl. Dip the halloumi slices in the dressing and let stand for about 10 minutes. Meanwhile cut the plums in half and remove the stones. Heat up your grill pan and grill the halloumi slices 2-3 minutes per side. When you flip them over, also add the plums to the pan, cut side down. Serve the grilled cheese and fruit on warmed plates with a scattering of mint leaves, a little oil and some fleur de sel.

Serves 2-3 as an appetizer.

Dainty Chocolate and Lavender Cookies

In a previous post, I mentioned venturing into the world of dried flowers. I was always rather wary of any sort of flowery addition to my food, fearing I'd end up with something tasting like perfume. On the way back from Amsterdam one afternoon, I came across some dried flowers and decided to finally leave my whimpiness behind me by purchasing some rose petals and some lavender. I'm glad I did because breakfast these days would be a boring affair if it wasn't for my very elegant home-made, rose enhanced jam. The key with adding dried flowers to cooking is to use a light hand. That way they end up enhancing the flavor of food and not masking it with their strong aroma.

A few nights ago, Hans and I cozied up on the couch to watch a movie, complete with a fine bottle of Nuits Saint-Georges and a fruit and cheese platter. Perhaps it was our snack of choice or the fact that the movie was about France, but all of a sudden the idea hit me to make some chocolate and lavender cookies. I guess it's because lavender is one of those flowers which I associate with France. Anyhow, I finally got a chance to get a little creative today and again, I was pretty amazed with the results. One tablespoon of dried lavender was all that was needed to transform a simple chocolate cookie into something you would serve at a dainty tea party! These thin, crispy beauties are now sitting in my prettiest of cookie tins. But in all honesty, I'm afraid they won't be sitting there that long!

Here's the recipe:

Dainty Chocolate and Lavender Cookies

*220g self-raising flour
*200g caster sugar
*225g butter, softened
*1 tbsp dried lavender flowers
*2 tbsps good- quality cocoa powder
*1 egg, lightly beaten
*pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 180C and line a cookie sheet with baking paper. Cream butter and sugar with an electric mixer. I used my Kitchen Aid for this. Add the egg and continue beating. Beat in the flour, chocolate, salt and lavender, making sure that the lavender is evenly distributed. Take small teaspoonfuls of the dough and form into fat, little discs of about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Place on prepared cookie sheet about 2 1/2 inches apart and bake for 15-18 minutes. Carefully transfer to a wire rack to cool. Cookies will be soft when they come out of the oven but will crispen up while cooling. Makes about 40 cookies.

Good Things!

I'm thrilled to be able to share my passion for food with others more and more these days. A few months ago, I started giving cooking lessons here in my home and I can't tell you how much it has enriched my life. Sharing knowledge about something that has your heart is truly a wonderful thing. I have seen my first student, Judith, develop an interest in food and knowing that I had something to do with that is doing my soul a lot of good. After all, I've always believed we have the power to inspire others, just by doing the things we love. Last week I also attended the first get-together of my own cooking group. I met up with some wonderful people for an entire afternoon of food talk, cooking, eating and drinking. We are all really looking forward to a cooking workshop with Victor Russo next month. Victor is an Italian chef and sommelier who was featured in Delicious magazine a few months ago. Along with him, I should also mention another brilliant Italian foodie who has recently caught my attention, Nicoletta Tavella, who was also featured in the same issue of Delicious as Victor. Just like Victor, Nicoletta gives cooking lessons here in the Netherlands, organizes cooking trips to Italy and has even published a book, Antipasti . I was thrilled to bits when I saw that Nicoletta had added my Dutch blog to her list of favorites, by the way!

It seems as though the list of interesting people and things is growing more and more exciting every day because yesterday I returned home to some very happy news! My recipe had won first prize in the McDonald's Kitchen contest! And before you have a heart attack, not that McDonald's! Andy McDonald is the Netherland's coolest new chef, an Englishman who has his own cooking show here which airs every Tuesday night, The McDonald's Kitchen. His approach to food is very similar to mine: healthy, fresh and seasonal. Well, thanks to my winning recipe, I'm off for a cooking workshop with Andy on the 29th of September!

All very exciting news to share with you today...and no recipe to go with that! But the week is drawing to an end and I feel a celebratory baking session coming on, so stay tuned!

La Vie en Rose Nectarine and Mango Jam

Rewards are a good thing, however small they may be, and yesterday was one of those days in which I needed to reward myself. At this point in my study career, I can't make up my mind about what's more challenging- choosing MA courses or actually taking them. Due to a lack of interesting 17th century art history courses at my university, I decided to enroll at The University of Amsterdam and explore my options there. Of course, things are never that easy, so yesterday I travelled between two universities to take care of formalities and plan the upcoming semester. After all was said and done and I was on my way home, I started to see the positive side of things. As of next semester, I was going to be spending more time in Amsterdam, studying art, but also taking advantage of my time there to see what the city has to offer foodwise! I live in a suburb just twenty minutes from the city and although I've been there many times, my trips have never really been about food since it's usually the museums I'm after.

To celebrate the upcoming possibilities (expect more Amsterdam food stories in the future!), I walked into an herb shop (not that type of herb) and decided to finally venture into the world of edible flowers. For some reason, the idea of eating flowers never appealed to me. I've seen lots of recipes using rose petals or lavender blooms for example, but however pretty they may look, I just couldn't see the point. If you remember my post about the rosewater chocolate cake, you might be wondering what on Earth I thought rosewater was made from. You see though, it's the flower itself I couldn't imagine eating, not something infused with it...however strange that may sound. I walked into the shop, picked up a bag of dried rose petals and gave it a good sniff. It smelled lovely of course but I kept wondering if this wouldn't be nicer for potpourri. After doing the same with a bag of lavender blooms, I pushed myself in the cashier's direction and payed, quick, before I would be able to change my mind. Now the only question was what to make.

When I was in France a few weeks ago, I purchased some blond cane sugar suitable for making jams. This morning the urge hit me to use the sugar, and my rose petals. The fruit of choice was a few ripe nectarines and an even riper mango. Whenever I embark on making a new recipe, there's always that little element of surprise. Will this work...or in this case...will this taste like perfume? I'm very pleased to inform you that it did work, didn't taste like perfume, and that a simple slice of bread for lunch was turned into a sweet celebration...for my future as a student and foodie in Amsterdam, and for daring to eat a jam made with flowers!

Here's the recipe:

La Vie en Rose Nectarine and Mango Jam
*1 ripe mango (about 600g whole and about 300-350g peeled and chopped)
* 6-7 ripe nectarines (about 900g whole and about 600-650g peeled and chopped) *500g blond cane sugar, suitable for making jam
*2 tbsps rosewater
*2 tbsps dried rose petals (it is essential that you get petals suitable for consumption and NOT sprayed with chemicals)

First sterilize your jars: wash them out well with hot water and then let them dry in a 140C oven. Leave them in the oven until you are ready to use them. Peel and cut your fruit. To peel the nectarines, simply immerse them in boiling water for 2-3 minutes and then plunge them into cold water. With the point of a knife, make an X on the underside of the fruit and remove the skin. Chop your fruit according to the consitency you want your jam to be. I chopped mine pretty roughly. Put all the ingredients in a large pot, stir well and let cook on medium heat for about 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Let stand for 10 minutes before ladling into two 1/2 liter jars.

Rosemary Chocolate Mousse with Fleur de Sel

A few months ago, I told you about one of my favorite chocolate cakes, Gennaro Contaldo's Torta al Cioccolato e Vino Rosso. The thing that makes this cake different from other chocolate cakes is its grown-up taste. It demands to be enjoyed with a good glass of red wine, preferably the same that went into the cake. As far as I'm concerned though, the magic ingredient is not so much the wine as that humble, little sprig of rosemary which goes on top of the cake. The slight bitterness of this aromatic herb seeps past the frosting and delicately infuses the chocolate sponge. Both flavors mirror each other and instead of entering into a competition in your mouth, they become more intense.

With that same idea in mind, I decided to make a chocolate mousse today. This time though, I wanted the taste of the rosemary to be more pronounced, and to make that all even more exciting, I added some fleur de sel, a beautiful ingredient not just meant for savory dishes. While I was making the mousse, I could just imagine how all of these flavors would come together. Waiting until after dinner to sample my newest creation was not an option, so after pouring the velvety smooth mousse into my slightly oversized cappuccino cups, I let one greedy finger glide into the mixing bowl, collecting as much as it could possibly hold before disappearing into my mouth. If I tell you that this was nothing short of a culinary masterpiece, it would sound as though I was boasting, but perhaps at times like these, a little boasting is in order. Here's the recipe:

Rosemary Chocolate Mousse with Fleur de Sel

*150ml milk
*1 medium sized sprig of rosemary, needles plucked plus a few extra bits, left whole, to serve
*200g good quality, pure chocolate, broken in small bits
*250ml double cream
*80g caster sugar
*fat pinch fleur de sel and some extra to serve


Remove the needles from the sprig of rosemary. Bring milk to the boil with the rosemary and then turn heat down to a very gentle simmer. Allow milk to simmer for about 15 minutes. Meanwhile melt chocolate au bain marie. Fill the sink with a bit of cold water. Sift the needles from the milk and add the chocolate, beating very well with a whisk. Plunge the pan into the cold water and let mixture cool for about 10 minutes, whisking occasionally. In a bowl, whip the cream, sugar and salt until the cream is almost stiff. Add the cooled chocolate mixture in three batches to the cream, stirring well with a wooden spoon after each addition. Pour the mousse into 4 small ramequins, or in my case, into three cappuccino cups. Add a tiny sprig of rosemary to each cup and refrigerate for at least an hour. Before serving, sprinkle each portion with another pinch of fleur de sel.