dijon

I had halloumi for the first time years ago after a night out with friends. We ended up at a pal's apartment where my friend (shoutout Jill) brought out a brick of cheese, sliced it, and to my surprise and delight, started grilling it in a pan. She flipped it so both sides were crispy and golden brown, then topped with lemon juice and oregano. So simple, so delicious, so squeaky and it's never been far from my mind. 

Summer is the best time of year for halloumi, I’ve even brought it camping to stunt on my friends. Grilled and nestled in around summer fruit, crumbled raw into a corn salad with pickled red onion or used as the protein in a wrap takes Miss Halloumi to the next level. I was lucky enough to have Halloumi Saganaki in Greece. Almost every restaurant offers Saganaki on the menu, which refers to the process of grilling or frying halloumi. I can confirm it is even better if you eat it in the motherland post-siesta, on a patio alongside a plate of little fried anchovies you eat like fries, with the cheapest half-litre of wine you've ever seen, surrounded by old men chattin’ and smokin’ with stray cats wandering by. 

If you haven’t had Chaeban’s, it’s the creamiest ice cream I’ve ever had and that’s thanks to Joseph’s high standards. Looking back, Darryl didn’t question Joseph’s instructions regarding equipment and ingredients but now realizes that they really went above and beyond in the beginning, even if it was a lot of overhead. “Joseph being Joseph was like we're getting milk from a local farm, we're going to be a federally certified dairy facility, we're going to need a full-time quality assurance person, and I was like, ‘I guess that's what you do with ice cream.’”

Chaeban found its rhythm, making sure to squirrel away their summer ice cream earnings so it could stretch over the colder and slower seasons. When Covid came along and the foot traffic screeched to a halt, they started selling ice cream in stores, which is not an easy task. They also started a home delivery subscription service. Even with these new efforts, the money still wasn’t adding up. “Joseph said ‘That's it, I'm making cheese.’ He had enough, we love this ice cream, we love this business, we love selling it locally, we'll always do it, but Joseph wanted to figure out what cheeses he could make with the equipment we had.” Since they splashed out with the equipment in the beginning, they didn’t need much to start the cheese production and the cheeses they began with: ricotta, feta and mascarpone don’t need to be aged and are packaged similarly to ice cream. They’ve since added some equipment to expand their inventory which now includes halloumi.

Initially, Darryl had no idea what halloumi was, but it is now one of his favourite products Chaeban makes. “It's made traditionally but we use a modern process. You do the normal cheese making process where you curdle it, separate the whey, press it, then you boil it in the whey. That's what makes it halloumi and not melt when you grill it. A lot of cultures have a process like this.” His favourite method of preparation is grilled, with a little honey or lemon to offset the saltiness.

Shannon Laliberte, Winnipeg makeup artist and all around cool girl, is also a big halloumi head. She first tried it at a fish and chips place in Montreal when living there. “Their vegetarian option was a big stick of battered and deep-fried halloumi - interesting fish replacement, but just as good as or better than fish.” Over the years she’s become somewhat of a beast in the home cooking space, often seen grilling out for her girls in a park or making dinners for her boyfriend's family in BC, one eye looking out the window at the beautiful ocean view, the other watching Housewives while doing prep work. 

Her idea for ‘Halloumi Sticks’ was born after making air fryer mozza sticks for an Oscar viewing party with friends. “It was kind of a pain in the ass. To make the breading thick enough that the mozzarella didn't melt out and coat the bottom of the air fryer, I had to dredge them, freeze them, dredge them, freeze them.” As we learned from Darryl, boiling the pressed cheese in its own whey toughens it up and makes it prime for grilling - not melting. With a quick dredge of each stick of halloumi, they were ready for the air fryer and came out perfectly crispy, gooey soft inside but not melted. “Halloumi doesn't melt, you know? So it's a life hack. Halloumi is a life hack.”

By now I’m sure you get that I ride hard for halloumi. Whether you’ve never had it or needed a reminder, go to Chaeban, pick up a brick and thank me later.