Sunday 27 November 2011

Marinated feta

I have been experimenting again, and wanted to share the results.



I have feta in my lunchtime salad every day. I usually just have normal feta, nothing special - usually whatever is on special when I'm at the supermarket. I love feta, but I find that sometimes I can't use it all before it goes off. There is nothing worse in my opinion, than wasting food.

By chance the other day, I had the most delicious marinated feta from the deli section at the supermarket. I didn't want to buy a whole block of feta as I was going away for a couple of days, but I still wanted my feta in my salad (I am absolutely a creature of habit when it comes to my workday breakfast and lunch). I spotted the feta in the deli section and decided to give it a go.

Oh my goodness it was delicious!!!

So, I decided to find out if I could recreate this myself. Turns out you can!

I just took my standard feta, chopped it up into chunky bits and jammed it into a jar. Around the feta I layered rosemary, thyme and dried chilli as well as peppercorns. I considered putting some sun-dried tomato in, but decided I had enough flavours. Might try that next time.

If stored in the fridge, the feta should last for at least a month. But, I have no doubt you will have eaten it all before then!

One thing to note if you decide to give this a go - raw garlic is a no-go. Same if you decide to make any kind of flavoured oil. Raw garlic can lead to botulism. There are a number of sites warning of the risk of storing raw garlic in oil. So, best to avoid. I have successfully used dried garlic before to give a lovely garlic tang (Wellingtonians - you can buy this from Moore Wilsons).