Homemade Halloumi

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  • Servings For 1kg halloumi

Halloumi is a delicious and versatile product that has a distinctive texture and is fantastic both cold and cooked (grilled or fried). It is traditionally made from goat's and sheep's milk, or a mixture of the two. I make my halloumi from cows milk as we can find it easily unpasteurised and in large amounts and goats milk can be a little heavy for some.

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Heat up the milk to 35C (best temperature is right after it has been milked)
  2. Dissolve/mix rennet in 60ml water in room temperature
  3. Gently mix rennet/water mix into the milk. Amount of the rennet may differ depending on the strength.
  4. Cover the milk and keep it in a warm place. Milk should remain at approx 35C. After 30-40mins the milk will thicken.
  5. Gently cut the curd into 1cm cubes with a long knife without mixing and rest for 5 more minutes.
  6. Gently stir the curds and heat to 40C for another 20 minutes. Continue slowly stirring the curd. At the end cubes should get smaller and break apart.
  7. Wait a few minutes for curds to fall to the bottom to make it easier to drain.
  8. Make sure to save the whey, using a colander+cheese cloth drain the whey (yellow liquid). I use a bowl or another large pan underneath the colander and the cheese cloth.
  9. Once the liquid whey is carefully drained, empty the curds into the cheese cloth on top of the colander.
  10. Wrap the curds into the cheese cloth and put a weight on it to make sure all the way is drained (I use a chopping board and some random weight on top). After 10 minutes, turn the curds with cheese cloth upside down and continue resting it for another 20 minutes under the weight. Curds in the cheese cloth should be approximately 4cm thick after this process.
  11. Remove weight, open and remove the cheese cloth and place the curds on a chopping board/flat surface.
  12. Cut the curds into approximately 10cmx10cm squares (or a finger length).
  13. Heat the previously separated whey up to 90C. Around 90C some more curds may start forming on the top of the whey, these should be removed with s spoon..etc
  14. Place all of the cut up squares of curds/halloumi into the heated up whey until they come up to the top of the whey and start floating (may take up to 30 minutes).
  15. Take halloumi pieces out of the whey one by one. Do not take all pieces out at the same time. Rub each piece of halloumi with approximately a spoon full of coarse salt and fold the square piece into half. One spoon may sound and look like a lot but it is not and this is very important in order to be able to store halloumis without turning sour. If you are using mint leaves, place a mint leaf in the middle of folded halloumi. This process should be done as quickly as possibly to avoid hallouimis getting cold. Be careful, halloumis are very hot.
  16. Once all the halloumis are processed, let them and the whey cool down.
  17. Move the whey into a jar/container where you would like to store the halloumis (a rather large jar or a container).
  18. Once everything has cooled down to room temperature, put the halloumis into the whey and shut close. These can be kept for up to a year if left unopened.