Smoky halloumi and tomato ciabattas

Recently I bought these oak smoked slow roasted vine ripened tomatoes and also the variation of them with garlic by The Tomato Stall from the Isle of Wight. This product is incredibly tasty and the tomato taste is still so fresh in them, I have never tasted a similar product this good. These tomatoes are very versatile to use and I'm sure they will keep re-occuring here on the blog, but now I decided to have them in just very basic halloumi ciabattas. The result however wasn't so basic, as these were the tastiest sandwiches I've had for a long while, if I may say so myself. 

Ingredients

250 g halloumi

1 tsp vegetable oil

Oak smoked slow roasted vine ripened tomatoes

Rocket

½ garlic clove

Ciabatta rolls

Method

Slice the halloumi and fry the slices in a pan in hot vegetable oil until golden brown on both sides.

Bake the ciabatta rolls for a few minutes in the oven and then grill them on a grill pan on each side after cutting.

Rub a little garlic onto the cut side of the roll halves. And also if you have the opportunity to use these same oak smoked tomatoes, brush a little of their smoky oil onto the ciabattas.

Fill the ciabattas with the halloumi, tomatoes and rocket and enjoy!

Have a lovely new week everyone!

Your VegHog

Basil ciabatta

I baked ciabatta, as it's one of my favourite bread types. I got inspiration and guidance from this recipe (in Finnish only), but then put my own twist on it. The original recipe used herb cream, but I thought that fresh herbs would be nicer and chose basil as the herb, as I wanted to serve the bread with tomato and mozzarella.

These ingredient amounts make either one large ciabatta or two smaller ones. Even 4-6 ciabatta rolls are possible, depending on the size.

28 g fresh basil leaves

250 ml cream

450 ml white bread flour

2 tbsp dry yeast

½ tbsp sugar

½ tsp salt

2 tbsp olive oil

Chop the basil leaves finely and warm the cream lukewarm. Add the basil to the cream and let infuse for a couple of minutes.

Mix the dry ingredients. Then add the basil cream and olive oil and knead to a bread dough.

Let the dough rise under a teatowel in a warm place for about one hour.

Shape to breads, brush them with olive oil and let rest under a teatowel for a further 15 minutes.

Bake at 220C for about 20 minutes until the surface is crispy and golden brown and the breads are fully baked.

After a while of cooling, I served the ciabatta with striking green tiger tomatoes, torn mozzarella and basil.

Your VegHog

Risotto burger with tomato, mozzarella and ciabatta

A risotto burger might sound fairly strange at first but just think about it how brilliant it must be! I got this idea mainly through the love for risotto and vegetarian Schnitzels and decided to try to make some. This was my first attempt and I'm sure that there will be more and I also have some ideas how to make them even better.

It's best to do these burgers the next day after making risotto. It's quite convenient usage for the left-over risotto. You can also cook the risotto just for the burgers but that's much more work for one day. I used a mushroom and pepper risotto for the burgers, which was similar to the risotto that I made here, only the asparagus is missing.

Ingredients

Risotto

2-3 Eggs

Bread crumbs

Olive oil

Ciabatta rolls

Cherry tomatoes

Mozzarella

Wild rocket

Beat the eggs on a deep plate and place the bread crumbs on another plate next to it. In that way you'll have a perfect production line for the burgers.

Heat olive oil in a pan. Olive oil isn't traditionally used that much for frying but Italian ingredients dominate in these burgers, so a nice olive oil note won't harm.

Take the risotto out of the refrigerator and shape burgers of it when it's in a cold state. If the risotto doesn't easily want to stick in a burger shape, stir a little wheat flour into the risotto and some beaten egg if needed. That should bind it better. If you want to make the burgers even more succulent mix some grated mozzarella into the risotto before shaping the burgers.

Roll the burgers first on the beaten egg plate and then in the breadcrumbs. Move them swiftly into the hot pan. Regulate the pan's heat if needed, it should be hot enough to fry the burgers until properly crispy but not too hot that they're about to burn. Turn the burgers over when one side is nicely fried golden brown and crispy. Place the fried burgers to the side and repeat this frying as long as you have some risotto left. It's totally up to you how many you want to make.

While frying you can do the rest of the preparations for the burgers: Bake the ciabatta rolls in the oven by following the info on the package. Even better if you can make your own ciabatti. Wash the rocket and tomatoes and chop the tomatoes and mozzarella into thin slices.

Before serving just stack all ingredients in a burger style on the ciabatta.

Stay hungry!

Your VegHog