Braised haloumi with tomatoes and beans

Ingredients

• 350 g cherry tomatoes (a mix of colours looks great), half cut in half and the remainder left whole
• 400 g tin black-eyed beans (or butter beans), drained (240g)
• 5 garlic cloves, 4 thinly sliced, 1 crushed
• 5–6 thyme sprigs, plus 1 tsp finely chopped leaves
• 1 lemon, zest thinly shaved to get 4 strips, the remainder finely grated
• 3 tsp lemon juice
• 90 ml olive oil
• 250 g haloumi (halloumi), cut into 6 slices
• 1 tsp za’atar
• fine sea salt and black pepper

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C fan.
2. Put all the tomatoes into a 26cm round (or similar) shallow ovenproof dish along with the beans, sliced garlic, thyme sprigs, lemon zest strips, lemon juice and 75ml olive oil. Add ½ teaspoon of salt and a good grind of pepper. Mix together and nestle the halloumi slices among the beans, making sure the cheese remains exposed. Drizzle the remaining tablespoon of oil over the cheese and bake for 30–35 minutes, until the tomatoes have collapsed, released their juices and the halloumi is golden.
3. Mix together the crushed garlic, thyme leaves, grated lemon zest and za’atar. Once the dish is out of the oven, swirl this through and serve.

This is an edited extract from Ottolenghi SIMPLE TOO by Yotam Ottolenghi and Verena Lochmuller (Penguin/Ebury Press, $69.99).