Seasonal · Made weekly
Sheep & Goat Halloumi
Cooked in its own whey, folded around dry mountain mint, then pressed and rested three days. Squeaks cold, browns hard, and holds its shape at 220 °C.
- Milk
- Sheep 70% · Goat 30%
- Method
- Whey-cooked, hand folded
- Resting
- 3 days in whey brine
- Format
- 250 g block, vacuum sealed
- Season
- May – October
- Rennet
- Traditional animal
Taste
Milky and faintly sweet before heat, savoury and almost meaty after it. The mint is a background note, not a flavouring — you find it on the second bite.
Keeping it
Sealed and refrigerated it keeps three months. Once opened, store submerged in lightly salted water at 4 °C and use inside five days.
Using it
Cut 1 cm thick, dry the faces, and give it a hot dry pan. It also takes a grill, a skewer, and a hard oven roast alongside vegetables.
Why it is only made in season
Halloumi wants milk with high solids, and the flock only gives that once the hillside greens up. From May the goats move onto the wild herbs on the western slope and the curd sets firmer, which is exactly what a whey-cooked cheese needs. When the pasture dries in late October, we stop rather than compensate with powdered solids.
That gives roughly twenty-two make days a year. Each one is logged against the same barrel ledger we keep for the feta, so the block in your hand traces to a single morning's milking.
