Grilled halloumi with mint sauce 

I love summer…love the hot weather, abundance of produce and of course there is light till much later. We love to sit out on the patio and have dinner. So I try to make simple dinners for summer, something that show cases the fresh herbs, light and fun to eat.

Last week in the farmers market I got a really nice bunch of mint and eggplants. I wanted to make something with those..then when I went to Trader Joe’s, I saw fresh halloumi and there…dinner was planned.

I decide to make grilled halloumi with mint sauce along with grilled eggplants.

Ingredients

Halloumi cheese sliced

1 Large eggplant

Mint sauce

1/2 cup of mint leaves

1 clove of garlic

1/8 th cup Cashews

1/2 cup olive oil

1 tbsp pomegranate molasses

Method

Slice the eggplant in 1/8th inch thick slices and salt them from both sides. Set aside and you will see that the salt takes out some moisture along with some bitterness.

After 30 mins, dry the eggplant slices and grill them on a griddle pan.

Wash the halloumi to remove any excess salt it might have, pat dry and also grill on the griddle. I use Cuisinart Panini maker.

Sauce

Grind all the ingredients till well blended.

To present stack the eggplant slice with the cheese slice, drizzle with the mint sauce and top with ‘Pomegranate molasses pearls’.  You can buy  Pomegranate molasses in any middle eastern store, I love using it many recipes. It is basically pomegranate juice that is reduced till it gets a thick syrupy consistency. I make pearl using agar agar and pomegranate molasses.

I love making this as a part of the middle eastern feast- Chicken Koobideh, Bulgur polow  & the grilled cheese with mint sauce.