The rumours are true.
The internet’s viral feta pasta sensation caused supermarkets in Finland to sell out of feta cheese when it was created back in early 2019. Well before it ever reached our mobile phone screens here in Australia.
The creator of the recipe, Jenni, runs a Finnish food blog called Liemessa, and in September 2020 she wrote that the original recipe called uuni feta pasta had received some 2.7 million page views since its beginnings.
If you haven’t seen it (you probably have though) the recipe that's gone viral on TikTok calls for a block of feta cheese placed in the middle of a baking tray, surrounded by cherry tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, a little chilli flake and some black pepper. The lot is then baked until golden and bubbling and freshly-cooked pasta is stirred through to make a salty, tangy, cheesy, tomato-studded sauce.
Of course, when something is that popular you know it has to be good, and 2.7m views can’t be wrong. Speaking from experience, I can say it’s certainly worth doing at least once.
How to make the viral feta pasta
Take one 200 g block of Greek feta cheese, and place it in the middle of a roasting tray. Pour two 200 g punnets of fresh cherry tomatoes around the cheese in an even layer and add a few cloves of peeled garlic.
Drizzle ⅓ cup olive oil over the tomatoes, and season with some pepper and chilli flake if you like. Don’t add salt until the end as the feta is already very salty and you may not need it.
Bake at 200°C for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, cook ¾ of a packet of your pasta shape of choice (about 375 g, to serve 3-4).
Remove feta from the oven, add basil leaves and break the cheese and garlic up a bit with a spoon. Toss through pasta and serve immediately.
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To keep the chips extra crisp, remember to pat the potato dry with paper towel prior to baking. Simple and quick to prepare, you’ll never revert to fried again!
This coiled pastry is from Naoussa, a village in the Cyclades region of northeastern Greece. It's filled with a rich-but-light creamy feta cheese centre.
These triangular pasties are based on a Lebanese speciality called fatayer, and use soft bread dough, rather than pastry, to enclose the filling. I like frozen spinach for this recipe – it’s very easy to use and actually produces a less watery mixture.
