Recipe - Baked Feta w/ Honeyed Strawberries
This is baked feta, yes, but there’s no pasta or tomatoes here. Instead, we’re introducing my favourite combination of sweet n salty with strawberries. When baking, the strawberries shrink in size but grow in flavor, becoming jammy and intense. Those fruity juices, plus olive oil and honey, yield a ruby syrup perfect for spooning over the hot feta.
Be brave with the black pepper—floral and kicky, it’s a wonderful match for the berries. My favorite way to serve this dish is with crusty bread, seared in a heavy pan with a robust olive oil. But you can let your imagination lead the way. This can be a fabulous side dish too, paired with grilled chicken or toss through a leafy salad, using the syrup as a dressing.
It’s hard to go wrong here!
Ingredients:
500 grams strawberries
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling
4 tablespoons honey
Flakey salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 feta block (approximately 200 grams, goats feta is lovely here)
Method:
Heat the oven to 180°C. Remove the strawberries’ green tops, then cut them in half.
Add the strawberries, olive oil, honey plus a little salt and lots of fresh cracked pepper. Toss to coat then spread out the strawberries into a single layer on the dish you want to serve them in. You want the berries to be a little crowded in the dish as remember, they will shrink when cooking.
Roast for 25 minutes.
Remove from the oven and nestle the feta block in the center. Drizzle the feta with a little olive oil & honey, then return to the oven.
Roast for another 25 to 30 minutes, until the juices are starting to thicken slightly and the feta is starting to brown. Let cool for a few minutes before serving.
Additional notes:
The recipe calls for only a few ingredients but do not skip the quality here. Use a good quality feta, local honey, robust olive oil and fresh quality bakery bread. It makes all the difference.
Don’t be afraid to turn up the grill for a minute before removing from oven to give the top of feta block a beautiful golden glow.
You can play around with the honey, oil and pepper. You will not ruin the dish changing quantities just get a different result. At different times of year strawberries are more juicy than other times as well as different varieties & brands, so it will never be the same twice.
I love to serve this in the beautiful dish it was cooked in.
Enjoy x
