Recently I was talking to my good friend Joao and as it sometimes happens, the subject ended up in food, more specifically cheese that can be grilled. I am a huge fan of halloumi cheese but had never heard of the Italian scamorza.
That same night I asked my friend to bring me some makeup from Italy that another friend had recommended. Well, he couldn’t find it so instead I got 2 scamorza cheeses!!! Probably for the best as otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to try it. So, why the title of the post? Because he gave them to me the last night I was in Lisbon, which means the scamorza traveled from Rome to Lisbon and the next day to England. Now that’s some mileage, no?
The scamorza cheese is made of cow’s milk and is in many aspects similar to mozzarella. It is white in colour, unless it is smoked. It is sometimes used as a mozzarella substitute in some dishes but the flavour is a lot stronger.
By luck or some sort of serendipity, when I got home I had a new skillet to try, sent to me by Ozeri, and in green, to match my eyes! *wink wink*I thought it was perfect to pan fry the scamorza cheese and I was right. I followed this recipe loosely: they didn’t have rocket or arugula at the supermarket and I only had one type of pesto at home, so I had to improvise. I cut the plum tomatoes, placed them on foil and put them in the oven. The recipe says to leave them in for an hour but that proved to be too long for such small tomatoes and they got a bit carbonized. oops! At least the before pictures look good.
I cut the scamorza in thick slices and pan fried them on the Ozeri skillet. As it is non stick, I didn’t have to add any extra fat and that’s a plus in my book. Because of this it was well easy to slip the cheese from the pan into the plate, and add a dollop of pesto on top.
The cheese is soft and plastic, very tasty but not as salty or rubbery as halloumi. As for the skillet, it is definitely approved as it is sturdy and appears to be durable. As the metal is thick, it is also heavy and I didn’t have the problem I sometimes have with smaller pans, which is loss of balance over the stove – sometimes the handle is heavier than the base! When this happens, it can be a real disaster… greasy food everywhere, not to mention getting burnt.
Verdict: both skillet and cheese are approved!
