A luxurious gratin with colourful layers of sweet orange pumpkin, salty white halloumi and tender potato, baked in pumpkin stock with a touch of cream. Great for a Christmas side dish or soul-warming winter dinner.
With a fresh, tart romaine salad dressed with apple cider vinaigrette, balancing the sweetness of the pumpkin and the richness of the cream.
Romaine lettuce is a quiet superfood – cheap, freely available and not yet the subject of Instagram hashtags, but one of the most nutritious greens you can buy. I love it.
Serve the creamy, delicately sweet gratin – with its beautiful orange and white layers – alongside the tangy, crunchy green salad and a glass or two of dry apple cider.
✶
Looking for more delicious halloumi dishes? This recipe is taken from How to Cook Halloumi – vegetarian feasts for every occasion by Nancy Anne Harbord – available in colour hardback and e-book. A dazzling array of super colourful, incredibly tasty halloumi recipes for brunch, dinner and parties!
Potato, pumpkin & halloumi gratin
Ingredients
halloumi gratin
- 500g or 1/2 small pumpkin/butternut squash
- 2 cloves garlic crushed
- 300 ml double/heavy cream
- 10-15 scrapes whole nutmeg
- 6 fresh sage leaves finely chopped
- 600g/4 medium potatoes
- 1 pack halloumi
romaine salad with apple cider vinaigrette
- 1 head romaine lettuce
- 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
- 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 100ml cold-pressed rapeseed oil
Instructions
for the gratin
- Preheat the oven to 180°C. Peel, halve and deseed the squash, adding all the trimmings to a medium saucepan. Add the crushed garlic and 600g water, bring to the boil and simmer for 20 minutes. Strain the stock to remove the squash trimmings, pressing with a spatula to extract the most flavour – you will be left with about 400ml stock. Add the cream, nutmeg, sage and ½ teaspoon flaky salt and plenty of pepper – the sauce should be flavourful and fairly salty.
- While the stock is simmering, thinly slice the pumpkin, potatoes and halloumi. Starting with a little sauce, layer potatoes, pumpkin and halloumi, separating each layer with a couple more tablespoons of sauce – keep the pieces overlapping but fairly loose so the liquid will be able to penetrate. Finish with a layer of pumpkin and a covering of sauce – make sure there is at least 1cm left at the top to allow for bubbling up. Cover with foil and bake for 40-50 minutes, until the vegetables feel tender when poked with a knife. Remove the foil and bake for a further 10 minutes to brown the top. Grind on a generous helping of pepper and rest for 10 minutes before serving.
for the salad
- You can whisk the dressing ingredients together by hand, but if you prefer a creamy, emulsified dressing, a food processor or blender is best. Start with the mustard, vinegar, ½ teaspoon flaky salt and lots of pepper, then add the oil in a drizzle – blend until the dressing is thick and smooth.
Looking for more delicious halloumi dishes? This recipe is taken from How to Cook Halloumi – vegetarian feasts for every occasion by Nancy Anne Harbord – available in colour hardback and e-book. A dazzling array of super colourful, incredibly tasty halloumi recipes for brunch, dinner and parties!
