Saganaki

We visited a new Coles store nearby recently and I found some saganaki cheese in their cheese fridge. I had always thought that saganaki was the name of the dish made in the saganaki pan, and not actually a type of cheese, so I'm not quite sure what kind of cheese this was.

Anyway, when you buy cheese clearly labelled saganaki, you have to fry it. It just wouldn't be right to have it any other way. I was browsing through the forums on Taste.com.au and I saw that one of their recipes that was going to be deactivated was a recipe for saganaki, so I thought I would give it a try to give the recipe a proper send off.

The recipe is pretty straight forward. The cheese is cubed and coasted in seasoned flour, then dipped in egg and breadcrumbs before being shallow fried. Generally, if I'm frying a Greek cheese I would use haloumi and I'd just put pieces of haloumi on a grill. I've never gone to this much trouble for cheese before.

That being said, they were extremely tasty. The crumbs got all crispy and stayed quite puffy while the cheese went all melty and gooey inside. Some of them did crack open during frying, leaving me with cheese and crumbs separate, but they still tasted good.

They were fun to eat, but the deep fried part just took the cheese to a level of unhealthiness that I coudn't quite get past. I enjoyed them, but I felt guilty the whole time. I think I'll stick with my grilled haloumi when I get the urge for fried cheese.


Saganaki
from Super Food Ideas previously posted on Taste.com.au
(I've halved this recipe)

1 tbs plain flour
1 egg, lightly beaten
3/4 cup fresh white breadcrumbs
180g saganaki cheese, cut into 3 cm cubes
grapeseed oil, for frying
lemon wedges, to serve

Place flour in a shallow bowl and season with pepper. Place egg and breadcrumbs in separate shallow bowls. Coat the cheese in seasoned flour, shaking off excess. Dip in egg, then coat in breadcrumbs.

Pour oil into a frying pan until 2cm deep. Heat over medium-high heat. Cook cheese in batches, turning often, for 3 minutes or until light golden and the cheese is starting to melt. Sprinkle with salt and serve with lemon.