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Hello my lovely Insiders!
Halloumi cheese is one of my favorite things to eat. I know I’m not alone; the salty, almost squeaky Cypriot cheese is popular around the world and commonplace in mainstream supermarkets and gourmet stores alike.
Halloumi also happens to be excellent baked in your steam oven. Golden brown on the edges and soft, almost-melty (but still holding its shape) on the inside.
And thus, I’m sharing a new recipe for tomato and herb baked halloumi. If you’re already a fan of my halloumi and vegetable bake from a few years back, you’ll almost certainly love today’s dish too. If you’ve never tried baking halloumi in your steam oven, this is the perfect way to try it out.
I’ve also got bonus halloumi recipe ideas in the Season Flip today, because you can never have too much cheese.
Happy cheese eating and happy cooking, see you in a couple of weeks.
Emily x
New to Cook: One-Pan Tomato and Herb Baked Halloumi Cheese
Baked halloumi cheese is a gorgeous meat-free main meal. Simple to put together and packed with golden-edged, salty-creamy haloumi, I love it best served with crusty bread for mopping up and holding the cheese and sauce. This dish is also an excellent substantial side to grilled meats or fish.
The Season Flip
Two lovely seasonal things to make, when too much halloumi is never enough!
Southern Hemisphere
This dish, baked during the short season for fresh apricots (almost upon us in my part of the world!), is so unexpected and so wonderful. Make it using the stated ingredients, but instead of following the method for cooking, set your oven to Combi Steam, 400°F/200°C, 30% (low) humidity. Bake the apricots and halloumi together until the apricots are soft and the halloumi golden brown. If you have a broil/grill element in your oven, you may want to turn that on for the last few minutes of cooking to get the cheese really browned.
Northern Hemisphere
Maple Baked Halloumi
As Northerners come into fall, maple flavored everything is seemingly everywhere. Instead of bucking the trend, let’s go with it. I recommend this little idea-recipe as an excellent and stupidly easy starter for entertaining.
Preheat your oven to Combi Steam, 400°F/200°C, 30% (low) humidity and line a sheet pan with parchment paper. Cut deep crosshatches (but not all the way through!) into a block of halloumi (the size doesn’t really matter here; go with whatever sized block you find at the grocery store). Coat the halloumi in a little olive oil, and bake until it’s oozy and browned.
When the cheese is done, drizzle it with maple syrup – the real stuff, please, no artificial maple here – and a squeeze of lemon. Serve immediately with bread, crackers, or whatever other vehicle you can think of for getting the hot cheese from plate to mouth.
A Call-Out About Thanksgiving and Christmas Content!
Somehow, the big end-of-year food days are almost upon us again. I’ve got a loose plan to do the next two Insider issues on Thanksgiving food, and the two after that on Christmas food. It’ll give us plenty of space and time to do justice to the biggest cooking days of the year. But I need your help to give you the best, most helpful content for both holidays!
If you have a moment, would you email to let me know if there’s something specific you’d like to try in your steam oven for Thanksgiving/Christmas? A family favorite recipe you want to adapt? Perhaps you have a question about your menu, even if that question is, “I have no menu, what should I cook”?!
Whatever it is, get those thoughts, requests and problems in and I’ll do my best to cover whatever I can over the festive season issues. I have a couple of lovely new dishes in mind to share, but beyond that I’m happy to create content and answer questions based on your cooking needs.
Ask Me Anything (AMA)
Here’s your opportunity to ask me anything you like related to combi steam cooking!
I encourage you to submit questions, and do my best to answer as many as possible. Though I cannot get to every single question, I carefully curate ones which are relevant and represent a variety of topics. We all learn from each other, and I often learn new things based on questions from all of you!
If you have an AMA question, please email it to [email protected]. Make sure you include the phrase INSIDERS AMA in the subject line so I can collate and read all your submissions.
From Teresa
Q: What would be the best way to cook a boneless leg of lamb in my Wolf M series steam oven? I tried cooking a boneless piece of lamb that came already marinated. Not having much time I used the gourmet mode leg of lamb, however I was not entirely happy with the results as it was slightly overcooked and not as tender as expected. I would appreciate your advice on how to best do this manually.
A: I cook lamb one of two ways in my steam oven; either very slowly roasted (that recipe is for shoulder, but will work just fine with a boneless leg if you cut the time down to 2 ½ – 3 hours), or slow but with a higher proportion of steam, as in this roast dinner recipe. Again, in the second recipe you can use a boneless leg and cut down the cooking time by 30 minutes to an hour.
Lamb can be a funny thing in a steam oven – unless you’re cooking a very lean cut like a backstrap, the internal fat in the meat really needs a longer and slower cook. Otherwise the steam will cook the meat fibers well before the fat has had a chance to render down and become delicious (I suspect from your explanation, that perhaps that’s what happened in your gourmet mode pre-set function). Overall, I’d recommend a temp no higher than 285°F/140°C, using either the convection humid or convection steam mode in your oven (the former for a slower cook more akin to a conventional oven, the latter for slightly faster cooking, though still slow).
From Cindy
Q: My family enjoys Braised Belgian Endive – especially during the holiday season. I have used the Julia Child recipe for years and years but would love to use my steam oven instead. Any suggestions?
A: I confess to not having cooked endive very many times in my life, as it’s very unusual to find in greengrocers where I live! Having looked at Julia Child’s method, though, it’s akin to a braised fennel dish I’ve done several times. I think you could replace the initial stovetop simmer in Julia’s recipe by steaming the endive for about 20 minutes. Then switch over the oven settings to Combi Steam, 325°F/160°C, 70-80% (high) humidity. You wouldn’t need the parchment paper to cover the dish, as the steam will stop all the liquid from evaporating out of the dish during cooking. I’m not certain on timing for the combi steam step, but I’d guess 40 minutes to an hour would be plenty. I’d love to know if you give it a try, and how it compares to your conventional method!
