Bejeweled Feta Recipe

This bejeweled feta recipe is one of the prettiest dishes you can make. It’s quick and will feed at least 4 people generously as a starter. 

In my humble opinion, feta is a stable for the modern fridge. It’s fresh and tangy, it’s versatile and if you’re ever trying to cut down on meat, it’s the most satisfying replacement. This simple feta recipe is great if you have guests coming and are short on time. Simply serve it with some warm pitas, naans or flat bread for an exotic and delicious starter. 

Choosing feta is easy. It’s available in most shops these days. I have two tips for you. Avoid feta “style” cheese and avoid Danish feta. Trust me, they are nothing like the Greek delicacy and the quality of the cheese is important in this dish. You will find perfectly decent feta in Lidl and Aldi for €1.49. You will also find it in other shops a slightly higher price. 

If you follow any of my social media channels, you will know I’m a massive fan of middle eastern food. I treated myself to Sabrina Ghayour‘s recipe books last year and I’ve never looked back since. I’ve added a couple of books to the Persian side of the library since. This reminds me that I really need to write a post about cookery books. I have some seriously great ones to recommend. Anyway, back to my feta recipe. 

I already blogged about a marinated feta dish and this one is not a million miles away from it. It is more exotic and the taste is so much more complex. This feta recipe is, quite like the previous one, a real joy to make and a delight to eat. 

Ingredients:

• Two blocks of feta cheese
• One pomegranate
• About 300 ml of very good olive oil
• One large spring onion or two small shallots
• Half a lemon
• One table spoon of pomegranate molasses
• One teaspoon of sumac
• Crushed black pepper to taste
• Fresh mint leaves.

Method:

• Cut your two blocks of feta in twelve cubes (cut it three times in the width and four in the length).
• Slice your onion or shallots very finely
• Deseed your pomegranate – here is how I do it. 
• Mix the pomegranate molasses with the lemon juice. Do this gently, and keep stirring until the molasses are all dissolved.
• Place your feta, onion and pomegranate in a bowl and spoon the liquid mixture over it. 
• Drizzle the olive oil over it until it’s covered half way up. I used a Californian olive oil I was given as a gift at Christmas (thank you Marian) , and low and behold, and unlike what Trump would have you believe, this American delicacy worked wonderfully well with the middle eastern flavours of this feta recipe. 
• Mix the dish gently and add the pepper and sumac. Mix again gently so that all the ingredients are coated in the juices. 
• Leave this to marinate for a couple of hours and gently mix it every 30 min or so. 
• Add the fresh mint before serving.