Cuisine – Best-ever cheesy snack

With hundreds of cookbooks on my own shelves and thousands more in bookstores and libraries, it’s not easy to declare a cookbook that’s a truly worthwhile purchase. It is really a happy occasion to find a book that is filled with such originality and personality that I want to get busy in the kitchen immediately.

A few years ago, food and wine writer friend Fiona Beckett was visiting from the UK and urged me to buy a book, Honey & Co: Food from the Middle East. She showed me a recipe, ‘feta and spring onion bouikos’ and said that alone was worth buying the book for. Fiona was right! They are amazingly moreish little cheesy nibbles that I have made on many occasions as they can be rustled up and every single one is guaranteed to be completely devoured within a half hour. Everyone I have shared the recipe with has said the same thing.

The authors, Sarit Packer and Itamar Srulovich, have literally poured their hearts onto the pages, just as they do in their Honey & Co little group of restaurants in London. Every chapter starts with lovely tales from the kitchen and about the staff, and every recipe has charming head notes that tell the story of the inspiration, or some extra guidance that will help the cook to achieve a great result at home. It’s an original book, and there is that other mysterious ingredient that’s essential in food but really hard to convey – passion!

As for the actual recipes, where do I start? Their vegetable fritters are the best I have ever made, the breads are simply wonderful, the combinations of a little spice and a lots of fresh vegetables and olive oil are mouth-watering, and both the ‘Cracked’ and ‘Balls and Stuff’ sections, with so many divine ideas, are a revelation. Perhaps my all-time favourite recipes are pomegranate molasses chicken with bulgur wheat salad; a chicken pastilla, short ribs with dates, date molasses and potatoes; and those cheesy bouikos.

And finally, this is the true test – I read this book from cover to cover and could not put it down. The good news is that the couple have since published two more books and they are equally good.

When cooking this very easy recipe, it is important to make sure the butter, cheese and sour cream are straight from the fridge and are very cold. My grandkids loved helping as they dug into all the ingredients with their little hands to form the dough. You could bring it all together in a food processor but it is really important not to over-process it as you want it quite lumpy. They are best eaten warm and on the same day and are a perfect accompaniment to a glass of wine.

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Honey & Co’s Cheese Bouikos

50g cold butter, chopped into little dice
40g mature Cheddar cheese, grated
40g feta, crumbled
100g plain flour
a pinch of salt
50ml sour cream
2 spring onions, finely chopped

Preheat the oven to 200C and line a baking tray with baking paper.

Place all the ingredients in a bowl and combine them with your hands until they form a dough. Place the ball of dough on a floured bench and with floured hands, pat it into a rectangle about 2-3cm thick.

Cut with a sharp knife into about 8 to 10 rectangles and then cut these across to form little triangles.

Place on the baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes. Reduce the oven to 180C, turn the tray around and bake another 10 minutes until the bouikos are golden.

Serve warm.