30 Meals in 30 Days: Mango Halloumi Brochettes (Skewers)

Today's meal is brought to you by the All You Need is Cheese magazine which I'm pretty sure nobody reads and I have no idea why I have it coming to my house, in my name. In fact, when the mail came and John asked me which flyers I wanted to keep, this magazine was put into the recycling bin.

And then I realized: I'm trying to find new recipes. New things to try. And that's what this magazine is all about.

So I gave it a shot and was pleasantly surprised: I was expecting to find a slew of Canadian cheese advertisements and a variety of methods of cooking grilled cheese.

What I found was a good handful of usable, vegetarian or easily-altered-to-be-vegetarian recipes and a list of cheeses I had never heard of. Which isn't shocking, because I pretty much stick to brie, old, and marble. Watch me hang my head low as I list "old" as a type of cheese. Not good, Sam. Not good.

Turns out the magazine is actually pretty good. And free. You can subscribe here.

Anyway, so as I was flipping I saw this beautiful picture of a veggie skewer featuring none other than mango. My favourite thing ever. Aside from real people and other things.

So we tried it. And now I bring to you...

Wait, wait. Before I go on I need to do a special shoutout to my new favourite thing ever, Halloumi Cheese:

"Semi-soft and rindless, Halloumi is a layered cheese with ancient Mediterranean origins. Salty with a squeaky chewiness, it is even better when grilled or fried golden brown." (That's quoted from the May 2013 All You Need is Cheese mag.)

This is where this picture came from. 

Halloumi cheese has a taste of its own which is quite good, but it absorbs flavour well and grills well without melting too quickly. Its squeakiness gives it a really great texture which is a nice break from a skewer full of veggies.

Here's how it's supposed to look.

Page 10, All You Need is Cheese Magazine Summer 2013 

Here's how to make it.

Combine 1 tbsp butter with 1 clove chopped garlic, 1/2 a chopped mango, 1/3 cup water, 2 tbsp corn syrup, 1/4 tsp hot pepper flakes and 1/2 tsp paprika. Heat over medium heat on saucepan. When heated, puree.

Meanwhile, prepare skewers with remaining 1/2 mango cubed, 1/2 diced red bell pepper, 1 small diced red onion, 1 zucchini cut into rounds and 8 oz. Canadian Halloumi cut into cubes.  Fry veggies with some oil to cook them through. Original recipe has the veggies put directly onto BBQ with cheese, but we found the cheese melted quicker than the veggies could cook - so we had some raw veggies. Your call.

Put the cooked veggies in a bowl and toss with mango sauce. Original recipe says to brush it on - but we prefer tossed and soaked.

String up your skewer.

Grill for 10 minutes, turning occasionally.

Here's how it really looks.
iPhoned.

Well in the end it did look more grilled than that but we don't have a photo! They were just too yummy and there was a baseball game we were planning to attend. At which my brother scored a point. Go Andrew!

Here's how we're rating it:
Taste value: 10/10 - although I would have given it an 11/10 if our mangos actually made it to the skewer.
Simplicity value: 7/10 - fairly time consuming in terms of preparation work but not especially difficult
Appearance value: 10/10 - they're bright and colourful!
Entertainment value: 10/10 - for guests I may add meat, though
Coolness value: 7/10 - they're skewers, which is awesome.