This is originally my girlfriend's recipe, but it's just so goddamn good. It's a pasta salad with halloumi cheese. That may sound weird, but the result is eminently tasty, and quite fast to make. Apologies if I do not use the frankly idiotic volume notations of the US for things sold by weight; I simply wouldn't know where to even start.
Ingredients:
- 250 g halloumi cheese (it's a Cypriot white cheese)
- 400 g pasta (preferably farfalle, penne or gnocci, but any will do)
- 1 red pepper
- 1 red onion
- 150 g mushrooms
- 120 g baby spinach
- pepper and salt
- vinegar
- oil
- soy sauce (optional)
First, put the pasta water on.
Now, ze chopping. Dice the onion and the pepper into roughly same-sized chunks; the pepper pieces can be a bit larger. Do the same with the mushrooms, but into still larger pieces - split them or quarter them, at the most. Open the halloumi wrapper, draining the moisture into the sink. You'll notice the cheese is quite rubbery; this makes it fairly easy to cut it into half-inch cubes. Don't worry, it'll look a whole lot better.
Get the pan hot; your average fry-onions-and-meat temperature is the goal, or slightly above. Get some oil on, and fry all the chopped vegetables. I usually put the halloumi in a few minutes after the rest has gotten going, because the halloumi tends to sweat. Stir while it fries, peppering generously, and watch the moisture boil off; ideally, the mushrooms should have a bit of colour to them now beyond just being boiled, and the halloumi will be gaining a brownish crust which is what you want. The other vegetables should be soft and have a bit of colour, but they shouldn't be burned to a crisp. Salt, stir, and remove from stove.
Now, wash the spinach, put in a bowl. Mix as much vinaigrette as you want (for this course I make around 7 cl; the sauce itself is a simple mixture of two parts oil and one part vinegar, and I usually add a dollop of soy sauce and even some tabasco), then pour it over the salad. Next, pour over the fried vegetables, and mix (stir) it around into one singularly weird but lovely entity. Add the pasta, sans pasta water, and mix in that as well. Season to taste with further pepper, salt and if necessary vinegar, tabasco and soy (and you will probably need to; I always chicken out and go with a conservative estimate).
...and you're done.