Saturday, December 5, 2015

Baked feta cheese appetizer


Most of the posts this week have been longtime favorites, but since one of the goals of this blog is to make sure I stay on the hunt for new recipes, I tried this one to round out the week of cheese appetizers.



Baked feta

Ingredients
½ pound firm feta (Israeli feta from the deli, or some other good block feta works well)
Olive oil
Crushed red pepper flakes
Crusty bread for serving

Method
Heat oven to 400 degrees. Cut feta into slices about a half-inch thick. Place each slice (or two slices if your block of feta isn’t very high) on a square of tin foil large enough to wrap it in. Drizzle with olive oi. Sprinkle with red pepper flakes. Seal foil pouches and place on baking sheet. Bake until cheese is slightly soft, about 10 minutes. Transfer to plates and drizzle with more olive oil. Serve with bread.

Rating: Simple, but satisfying. Goes well with a hearty soup or as a first-course appetizer. Needs to be served warm, however, so I’d only serve it to company that can be easily herded to the table, and allow yourself a moment alone in the kitchen to try to manage the transfer of a soft cheese from foil packet to plate without the added pressure of an audience. Pouches can be assembled in advance and then baked at the last minute. So not really a cocktail party candidate unless you transfer it to individual small plates with bread slices; more a dinner table appetizer.

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