(light-hearted rock music)
(dog whimpering)
- Hallou, is it me you're looking for?
Sorry, if you didn't know me already,
then you would know that I was definitely
gonna start this video with that.
And what does cheese say when it looks in the mirror?
Halloumi.
Let's just get that out of the way.
Halloumi fries.
For me one of the most amazing,
delicious things of the modern era.
I'm havin' a dirty food rant,
which a lot of you agreed with me on Twitter.
Thank you so much.
But Halloumi fries have just sort of sprung
out of nowhere in the last couple of years.
And I wanna make my own homemade ones.
When it comes to recipes, I like try
and keep them as simple as I can.
But I'm gonna lace these Halloumi fries with paprika.
The context of making Halloumi fries
is extremely simple indeed, like ridiculous.
It's very, very minimal ingredients.
In fact you could go absolutely crazy with the coating.
For example Boston, you know the other day
when we did the popcorn chicken recipe?
Right, you remember that?
We put the baking powder in it.
If you wanted to really bubble it up,
You could do that.
You could.
I'm gonna wash my hands, don't worry.
But of course, you can make it as simple as you want.
The very basis could just be the Halloumi,
is it me you're looking for.
And the flour.
That's it.
So to put it simply, for Halloumi fries
all you need is Halloumi, flour, and oil to fry it in.
Now, I've actually not got much plain flour in the house.
So I'm gonna go with some actual bread flour.
It should be fine.
That's my point, it's very easy.
On top of that flour, any coating you desire,
herbs, spices, all that stuff, muah!
Make it your own.
All right.
So there is, a block of Halloumi.
And notoriously, I found this really tricky
to cut into even french fry shapes.
Out of the entire recipe, this might be the hardest thing.
So it's quite a thick 'ole block there.
So if we halve that, right down the middle,
we should be able to cut it
and get maybe two or three chunks.
So it's about six or eight fries out of this.
So all we're gonna do is slice down that block.
I'm gonna go slow and steady.
Oh, do you know what?
It's starting to come apart anyway.
I think it might be in two pieces or something.
I'm still gonna go steady,
I'm gonna try and get it fairly even.
Oh!
- Hello.
- [Barry] Where are you goin'?
- To the garden.
- Bye. - Bye.
- Mrs. Barry is out gardening.
Ah, wow.
Yeah, big fat wedges like that.
I might be able to get a four.
Her last name before she married me was Gardner.
So, I guess it's in her blood.
Ah, yeah, this is actually very, very satisfying.
So from one block of Halloumi cheese,
which is about 250 grammes in the one I bought,
we've managed to get us out eight chunky fries.
So all we've got to do is coat them now.
So we might as well start to get our oil on.
Do, do, do, do. (snapping)
So as I said, it's very similar
to the popcorn chicken recipe.
Which I'm actually filming this recipe so far in advance
that I haven't put that video up yet,
'cause this is one of the last videos
we're filming before the kitchen gets done.
Hopefully you guys enjoy that popcorn chicken video.
It's very, very good.
I'm just fillin' the wok up with one litre of the oil.
Whilst trying to splash as much as I can on me as possible.
All right, so like a medium-low flame,
just while we're coating it.
We want to get it hot, but, you know,
it's gonna take a while.
One thing to let you know about Hallou,
is it me you're looking for fries,
is that there's probably that perception to some people.
And most of you are probably quite like yeah I know that.
But, some of you might think, oh yeah they're healthier,
'cause it's Halloumi, and it's not a chip.
Eee.
A 30 gramme serving is 28% of your
saturated fat daily allowance.
The entire day.
30 grammes.
Okay?
This is 250 grammes, almost ten times that.
They're a nice treat, but just because it's homemade,
it doesn't really make it much healthier.
All right.
One.
Ah it smells so good!
Two tablespoons of smoked paprika.
One, two, three, four tablespoons of the flour.
A good 'ole grind of black pepper.
I just love the little specks it's gonna give.
You could have a whole host of herbs
in here now if you wanted, but this will be it for us.
We'll mix this together.
I'd say yeah, if you really wanna make these pop,
a little bit of baking powder,
and as soon as it hits the oil, this is gonna puff out.
Isn't that really cool?
But we did that with the popcorn chicken,
so you can experiment with that.
Loving that.
So all that's left to do is to take a Halloumi fry,
sit it in the dry mixture, and just see how it grips to it.
Almost straight away like that.
It completely coated it.
Because the surface of them is a little bit wet,
that's why we're not doin' an egg wash.
But make sure you've completely got it covered, all right?
That's all you need to do.
The oil is nearly hot enough, the pug is hunting for
some potential paprika I dropped on the floor.
Got a little chopping board there with some
kitchen towel to one side.
We're ready to go.
A good way to test that the oil is ready
is to just drop, a crust of bread in.
And you can see how it's sort of
like frying almost immediately.
Gentle bubbles,
a bit more control, not too hot yet,
but that will do it.
Remember to get the bottoms of your Halloumi fries as well.
Just dunk them in either end, all right?
So in they go.
Gonna get a bit cloudy in there
'cause of the paprika, obviously.
Ooh, we're out of focus, whoops.
There you go, sorry. (laughs)
You can see that coatin' startin' to come on now?
Oh yeah.
Oh, there we go, slotted spoon
just to let any excess oil drip off.
I'm just gonna lift it right down onto there.
I love the sort of patterned effect you get.
Yeah.
Remember, they are best served warm as well.
Not straight out of the oil, okay?
Obviously, let your oil cool down fully before
you even going anywhere near it.
And this, it's time to serve it up.
Stack 'em with a dip of your choice.
As I say, these are best served still warm.
So there's still a bit of wobble and movement in there,
otherwise you might as well just take it straight out
of the fridge, it'd be too cold.
And there we go.
Smokey paprika Halloumi fries.
(humming) All right.
So they're still warm,
and they've got a nice little movement in it.
Best time to eat them, all right.
And that's what I'm gonna do right now.
In comes the gardener.
Techincally should have walked through door
and done like the whole Adele thing,
goin' Hallou, it's me.
All right, just before Mrs. Barry gets ready,
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- They're hot
- They are hot, they're warm.
They're warm, they're not hot, hot.
- Sour cream, that's an odd choice of dip.
- It's one of my favourites.
- Yeah but with cheese?
I would've gone with ketchup or salsa.
Or sweet chilli.
- Well, it's not-cho cheese. (laughs)
- That dip doesn't go with it.
- Yeah it does, it's dip!
- I'd prefer it a bit sweet chilli.
But these are amazing.
- Dip is like an assistant lubrication to the main recipe.
That's what we've done.
They are really good.
- Better with sweet chilli.
Mm, really good.
- Really good, but could do with a better dip, right?
- No, very nice.
I never got why Halloumi squeaks
on your teeth when you eat it.
Do you found that?
- I do, yes, squeaky cheese.
- Squeaky cheese.
- It squeaks for itself, that's gone down well.
The barbecue sauce from the popcorn chicken would
be good with that actually.
Why are you such an analyst about dips all of the sudden?
Oh my gosh. - No, no.
I was trying to think of a pun, food pun,
but I couldn't.
Very nice.
- You dipstick.
(laughs)
That's an old school insult.
My dad used to call me a dipstick.
All right guys. (laughs)
- I Halloumi love it.
(mumbles) Bye.
(laughs)