Noodles with tuna, halloumi and mint

To counter all of that Valentines sweetness, today I am posting about a savoury dish that I encountered in my eternal quest for non-boring lunches. I was intrigued by a dish recently posted by Peter of the excellent Kalofagas - Pursuit of Delicious Foods called Hilopites with Halloumi and Mint. It looked delicious, and Peter described it as a lazy person's pleasure - hey, this dish was made for me!

I finally got around to making my version this evening (yep, I am so lazy that I cooked my next week's worth of work lunches at dinner so that I didn't have to cook twice!), and it is pictured above. If you are tempted by my picture (which looks good for a change - I am bad at photographing savoury dishes), go to Peter's original for the "how to".

The changes that I made from the original were:

1. My supermarket didn't sell nice fat egg noodles - it only sold thin ones that are pre-cooked.

2. My supermarket didn't sell Manouri cheese, and besides, I thought a little meat would be great in this - so I added a small can of tuna in springwater (drained).

3. I didn't add the half stick of butter with the oil to the pan - it's that girly weight-conscious thing again (although this is clearly not a diet dish).

4. Instead of tawny port, I added a splash of (erh-hem) rose, being the only wine I have in the house at present (apart from a bottle of Tamborine Mountain merlot, which promises to taste like black cherries, although probably tastes like vinegar after moving through 10 years, 4 houses and poor storage).

And you know what - in spite of the wild substitutions and omissions, this tasted great! The salty tang of the fried Halloumi is the highlight of the dish, and the mint blends surprisingly well (I've never used fresh mint before, and usually associate it with sweet delights rather than savoury dishes). All I can say is try this dish - it is really good!