Halloumi salad

Hola peeps. I have been dying to go on a vacation but for one reason or the other, none of my phantom plans have actually materialised this year. Not too happy about that but then, there was a kutti (tiny) chennai plan that happened 2 weeks back (yayyy yayyy). You may wonder what’s exciting about a kutti chennai trip and below are the reasons –

1. It was a SOLO trip – No D, No Adya (yayyy yayyyy).
2. I was going to meet my friends Janani & Hari (Sush & Tej should have been a part of this but they had to travel to Bangalore).
3. Jan & I planned to stay in the place we grew up in.

If the above reasons don’t make you understand my overall excitement, please exit my blog :p. Anywho, I went to chennai for 3 nights & 2 days. 2 nights were well spent catching up with my darling niece Sam & my other co-sister Vidya and they got me up to speed on Big Boss Season 2 – Tamil 😀 😀 (Judge me all you want). 1 day was mostly spent visiting doctors & doing some awesome road side shopping in pondy bazaar.

Day 2 was the magical one. You really need to know me & Jan to understand this. We have literally had the lovers’ scene where one is running from each corner to finally meet in the center puffing & panting to do anything more 😀 (this was in college). So, both of us were looking forward to the meeting & the 23 hours we had to ourselves in the place we grew up in. We met, we hugged, we kissed, we ate, we laughed, we gossip’d, we gushed (about each other & of our proud past, lol), we ate some more & we also slept a bit (we are old people, can’t do the stay awake all day/ night anymore). We even managed to watch a movie in the theatres, got some spa time (I am making a haircut sound cool here :)) & shopped. We ended the day with a nice dinner date. Aaah, I think I can declare Janani to be the platonic love of my life. I had ZERO guilt of having left Adya behind honestly :D. He was having fun with his grand parents anyways.

Anywho, I am now on post no 2 of my salad series (I am allowed to call 3 as a series right? :D). The other 2 are the orange pear salad & the peanut salad. I had this salad a while back. It was really nice but realised it was also pretty simple to recreate. The restaurant was charging a bomb for this & they hadn’t even put too many halloumi pieces :). I decided to recreate it & it turned out pretty good. Once again, I like how easy it is to put this together. When I decide to have a week of salads, I know this one is surely on that list. Note to self – D also likes & has approved this salad :D.

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Halloumi salad

Prep Time

10 mins

Cook Time

5 mins

 

Course: Main Course, Salad

Cuisine: Middle Eastern

Servings: 2 persons

Ingredients

• 5 large lettuce leaves stacked 2 cups when chopped
• 1 medium onion
• 12 nos cherry tomatoes
• 12-15 nos pitted whole black olives
• 150 gms halloumi cheese
• a handful fresh mint leaves

Lemon vinaigrette

• 1 lemon juice/ squeeze
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 3/4 tsp dijon mustard
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp maple syrup
• 1 tsp dried red chilli flakes
• 1/2 tsp salt

Instructions

Lemon Vinaigrette dressing

1. In a small bowl, add 1 lemon squeeze, 1T olive oil, 3/4t dijon mustard, 1/2t garlic powder, 1/2t maple syrup, 1t dried red chilli flakes, 1/2t salt.

2. Mix everything well. Set it aside.

Salad prep

1. Cut halloumi into thin strips/ fingers.

2. Heat a flat pan/ tawa with 1/2t olive oil. Once hot, add strips of halloumi and toast till golden brown on both sides.

3. Take it off the pan, place it on a plate and set it aside to cool.

4. Wash lettuce leaves and let them to dry on a kitchen towel. If you are pressed for time, just wipe them dry with the kitchen towel.

5. Wash the tomatoes, onion, mint leaves.

6. Chop the lettuce leaves roughly and add it into a large bowl.

7. Half the cherry tomatoes, squeeze the excess pulp & seeds out of the tomatoes, add it to the bowl.

8. Slice the onion long and thin. Add it to the bowl.

9. Chop the olives into rings and add it to the bowl.

10. Chop the mint leaves finely and add it on the veggies.

11. Throw in the halloumi.

12. Pour the lemon vinaigrette, mix everything.

13. Check and adjust salt/ seasoning.

14. Serve immediately. If you plan to have it later, then add the lemon vinaigrette only before serving. Chill the salad in refrigerator.

Recipe Notes

1. You don’t necessarily need to pan fry the halloumi but D loves it this way. So I usually put the effort to do this. 
2. If I am doing this salad for myself, then I don’t bother squeezing the excess pulp/ seeds from the cherry tomatoes. 
3. You can use honey/ brown sugar in place of maple syrup.
4. You can use vinegar in place of lemon. Just use 3/4t of it, that’s all. 
5. You could use cucumber instead of lettuce or a mix of lettuce and cucumber.