Side · In Afrikaans: Halloumi op die kole

Braai halloumi with fynbos honey

Name: Braai halloumi with fynbos honey
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 8 min
Total time: 18 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: South African
Ingredients: 500 g halloumi, in 1.5 cm slices; 3 tbsp olive oil; 4 tbsp fynbos honey; 1 lemon, zest and juice; 1 tsp chilli flakes; 1 tsp dried oregano; 1 tbsp mint, chopped; black pepper

Thick slices of halloumi over hot coals, then dressed with honey, lemon and chilli. Eight minutes from packet to plate — the fastest thing at the fire.

Halloumi has a very high melting point and holds its shape on a grid. Fynbos honey comes from the Cape vegetation and is stronger and more resinous than a blossom honey — which is exactly what the salt of the cheese needs.

Prep: 10 min
On the fire: 8 min
Serves: 4
Effort: easy

Grilled slices of halloumi with dark bar marks — Hmioannou · CC BY 3.0

How hot

Hot

You can hold your hand over the grid for 4 seconds · ≈ 200–230 °C

Every coal stage explained →

Which wood

Rooikrans

spicy, resinous

Method

Dry the cheese

Pat the slices with paper. Halloumi sits in brine, and wet cheese sticks to the grid instead of browning.
Mix the honey dressing

Stir together honey, lemon juice and zest, chilli flakes and oregano. It goes on after cooking — on the grid the honey would burn.
Oil it

Brush the slices thinly with olive oil and oil the grid as well. Both, not one.
Short and hot

Over hot coals, four seconds on the hand test, three to four minutes a side. Turn exactly once, when clear grid marks show and the cheese releases itself. Before that it cannot be moved without tearing.
Dress and serve

Straight onto a platter, spoon over the honey dressing, add pepper and scatter with mint. Halloumi is good hot and rubbery cold — it comes off the fire last and goes to the table first.

Tips

Do not move it too early. Halloumi sticks until a crust has formed and then lets go by itself. Pull at it and you tear the cheese.
A hinged grid makes turning easier and stops pieces falling through. The kinder option for a first attempt.
For skewers, thread halloumi with courgette and pepper. Then it takes 15 minutes rather than eight, and the vegetables set the time.

Halloumi is an exception at a fire: almost every other cheese runs away. The way halloumi is made leaves it firm enough that at grid temperature it melts only on the surface and stays squeakily firm inside.

What it needs is a counterweight. It is very salty, and without sweetness and acid a portion tastes two slices too long. Hence honey and lemon, and hence only afterwards — on the grid honey burns in seconds.

Fynbos honey is not a label here. The Cape vegetation yields a dark, resinous honey that stands up to salt better than a mild blossom honey. If you cannot get it, use the strongest you can find.

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