Whether you call it halloumi or hellim, it is the one ingredient that I always have in my refrigerator for when you need rescuing and you have nothing else. These skewers are Mediterranean in essence, but with a little spice to boot. My favorite way to eat them is to place the skewer onto some flatbread and slide the ingredients off, then drizzle with a little honey (trust me on this), add a squeeze of lemon juice, and a little chilli sauce. Roll it up and tuck in. If you don’t have skewers, simply roast the ingredients on a baking pan.
Fishcake recipes are always handy, featuring ingredients from the pantry. In Malta, similar patties are also made with corned beef. I like to serve these with plenty of lemon and a salad of iceberg lettuce. They are also nice eaten cold and can be added to a platt Malti.
Want to “wake up” your white fish with full flavor? Look no further than George McCalman’s recipe for fried jacks. Jacks is a local tropical fish indigenous to the Caribbean, but you can substitute with any mellow white fish. With a dish so simple and quick, we recommend seeking out a Grenadian curry, which differs from its Indian counterpart, with roots going back to the slave and spice trade. We promise this dish is bound to take your tastebuds to the Caribbean.
To roast a side of salmon that was silky throughout and evenly browned across its surface, we salted it for an hour, which helped the flesh retain moisture and protein (which would otherwise seep out unattractively during roasting). Placing it on a greased aluminum foil sling ensured that it was easy to transfer to a serving platter. For cooking, we set the salmon on a wire rack set in a rimmed baking sheet to encourage air circulation around the fillet. Evenly brushing the salmon's surface with honey encouraged rapid browning. We found that a three-step cooking process gave us the best results. First, we preheated the oven to 250 degrees to warm the entire oven, which ensured that cooking happened quickly and evenly. Second, we broiled the fillet until it just began to brown. Third, we again turned the oven heat to 250 degrees to allow the fillet to gently cook through.
Miso-glazed salmon promises firm, flavorful fish with a glazed, lacquer-like exterior but takes 3 days to prepare. This version shortens the process, but still achieves the depth of sweet-savory flavor that this dish is known for.