Delicious: making a pita but in a different way

Say wine, snacks or haute cuisine and the foodies of online food magazine FavorFlav know where to drink, how to eat it and what to cook. This time our chefs serve you: the tastiest pitas.

Salads boring? Not at all! There are endless ways to transform that nice bowl of lettuce into something amazing. Ajda Mehmet lends you a hand and shares easy recipes and ways to upgrade that simple salad and salad sides in her new cookbook Salad days. We fell head over heels for these pitas with halloumi on the side.

Ingredients 

2 x 225 g halloumi, of good quality, sliced into 1 cm pieces
4 tbsp honey
the leaves from 4 sprigs of thyme
4 pita breads
squeeze of lemon juice
25 g butter

Ajda: “Use the tastiest pitas you can find for this recipe. I don't like the pitas from the supermarket: they are too thin, too dry and have hardly any flavor. I prefer to buy them at the Turkish store near me, preferably the fresh ones from the bakery. Good halloumi is just as important for the best end result. It's actually a kind of toast, but a bit fancier. I think it's a heavenly combination of ingredients. Halloumi for life!”

How to make stuffed pitas with halloumi

• Drizzle the halloumi slices on both sides with honey and sprinkle with the thyme leaves.
• Fry the halloumi in a dry non-stick pan on both sides until golden brown and soft in the middle. You can use a little oil if you want, but I don't think it's necessary for halloumi if you use a good non-stick pan.
• Warm the pitas in a dry frying pan or toaster.
• Cut the warm pitas open with a serrated knife – be careful of the hot steam that escapes as you cut them open. Fill each pita with a few slices of halloumi. Drizzle with honey and squeeze some lemon juice over it. Gently press them closed. Spread butter on the outside and fry them in the pan for a few more minutes on each side until golden brown. Eat immediately.

Title: Salad days
Author: Ajda Mehmet
Price: €20,95
Publisher: Good Cook