Feta cheese (Recipe: baked shrimp with tomatoes and feta)

When I was younger, I learned a lot of what I knew about boys in summer camp, from my girlfriends who had older siblings or whose mothers had had "the talk" before mine ever worked up the courage to give it a try.

Similarly, I learned a lot of what I knew about food from my friends who had grandparents and parents from Italy and Puerto Rico and the American South. Pasta and parmesan, enchiladas and chicken fried steak -- all were new to me.

I didn't know any kids from Greek families, though, so it took years before I learned about feta cheese.

Feta (pronounced FEH tah) is a white, salty curd cheese. In 2005, it received PDO (protected designation of origin) status as a uniquely Greek cheese, made from sheep's milk or a blend of up to 70 percent sheep's milk and 30 percent goat's milk. Feta made outside the European Union, or for export, is allowed to contain cow's milk.

Traditionally feta is made by heating unpasteurized milk mixed with rennet. The curds that form are drained to remove the whey; then the curds are cut and wrapped tightly in cheesecloth, which molds them into loose blocks of cheese. Under pressure, the blocks firm up (the word feta comes from the Italian fetta, meaning "slice"), and are placed in a salty brine to cure for six to eight weeks.

If the feta you buy is particularly salty, soak the cheese in fresh water for an hour to allow some of the brine to dissipate. Store feta in its original package, to retain moisture until you're ready to use it. Because it dries out rapidly when removed from the brine, please don't buy the packaged crumbled feta; the taste is a poor second to buying feta in a whole block and crumbling it yourself.

Whether you buy authentic Greek feta or good domestic feta (we're lucky to have artisanal feta made by Narragansett Creamery here in Rhode Island), you'll enjoy making your own marinated feta, or cooking it in a mushroom and feta breakfast casserole, crustless spinach, onion and feta quiche, pasta with cauliflower, walnuts and feta, or tomato, feta and oregano panini.

Baked shrimp with tomatoes and feta

Adapted slightly from Ellie Krieger's The Food You Crave, this makes a quick-and-easy elegant main dish, served over rice or orzo. Serves 8.

Ingredients

2 Tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 28-oz cans diced tomatoes, with their juices
1/2 tsp kosher salt, or more to taste
1/2 cup finely minced flat-leaf parsley
2 Tbsp minced fresh dill, or more to taste
2-1/2 lbs medium (31-40 size) shrimp, peeled and deveined
1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper, or more to taste
6 oz crumbled feta cheese

Directions

Preheat the oven to 425°F.

Heat the oil in an ovenproof skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring, until softened, 3 minutes. Then add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds. Add the tomatoes and salt, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and let simmer for 5 minutes, or until the tomato juices thicken.

Remove from the heat. Stir in the parsley, dill, shrimp and black pepper. Taste the sauce, and add salt if needed. Sprinkle the feta over the top, and bake on the middle rack of the oven until the shrimp are cooked through and the cheese begins to soften, approximately 12 minutes. Serve hot or warm, over rice or orzo.

[Printer-friendly recipe.]

More recipes in The Perfect Pantry:
Warm salad of kamut, cranberries and feta
Quinoa salad with tomato, feta and parsley
Mexican tortilla and lime soup
Red lentil, spinach and feta salad
Tangerine and feta salad

(By the way, the white bowl is one of four that were a gift from, and were designed and made by, Ben, who graduated yesterday from Rhode Island School of Design. He won a very prestigious award for industrial design. Congratulations, Ben!)

Comments

My dauhter would love this. Thanks for sharing another great recipe!

This recipe for Feta Cheese Turkey Burgers found on AllRecipes.com is a year round favorite:

Feta Cheese Turkey Burgers

1 pound ground turkey
1 cup crumbled feta cheese
1/2 cup kalamata olives, pitted and sliced
2 teaspoons dried oregano
ground black pepper to taste

Preheat the grill for medium high heat.

In a large bowl, combine turkey, feta cheese, olives, oregano, and pepper. Mix together, and form into patties.

Lightly oil the grate. Place patties on the grill. Cook for 10 to 12 minutes, turning halfway through.

That's a nice recipe to highlight feta - and how jealous am I that you have access to artisanal feta cheese?

I've made a fabulous couscous salad with garbanzo beans, spring onions, lemon zest and juice and feta cheese. It is soooooo wonderful as a side dish at a cook-out or a large salad for lunch.

we love the Narragansett Creamery feta! we make a ride to Providence specifically for that yummy cheese

Oh Feta how do I love thee... let me count the ways.....
just another one on the long list of cheese addictions I have :-)

I happend to have all these ingredients in my fridge now!! I am making this for dinner this week.!

I love feta cheese!!! I love crumbling it into bruschetta and eating it on toasted garlic bread. It's also super yummy sprinkled onto of fresh hot french fries dipped into tzatziki sauce (the cucumber sauce for gyros).
And of course in any salad!!! :)

I love feta cheese. this looks really good.

Leaving for Greece on Sunday and can't wait to try all greek dishes in Kefalonia! Yummy feta!

This shrimp dish looks pretty darn fantastic! I love dill and tomatoes together and then you throw feta in the mix,I'm a happy camper thanks for a great recipe!

Er...I eat Greek yogurt every day! Does that count? Haha I love it with some fresh fruit and sometimes a drizzle of honey. Otherwise, as far as Greek/Mediterranean food goes, I am a HUGE fan of falafel!!

Hi,
I have FETA in the fridge..
The other day I made Portobella Mushroom with Bruschetta & Feta.It was delish.

First time visitor and looking forward to making this dish. Yours will be added to my browser bookmarks/cookbook of recipes I use for nightly dinners!

Oh summer camp...where I learned many (dirty) jokes, how to hide candy from counselors (it wasn't allowed) and how to climb to the roof of a cabin. And being an all-girls camp, boys were usually the hot topic :) Thanks for the reminder of days gone by! And, by the way, that dish looks delicious!

I think I will be making this for dinner sometime this week...

Narragansett Creamery? I've got to check that out next time I'm in RI. I also love marinated feta salad with olives for a picnic.

Not crazy about feta, love the blog though!

I am a huge fan of feta, we always have some in the fridge.

I love tsatskiki..or however you spell that.

The photo looks great. I am marking this down to try!

my fav greek appetizer is the flaming cheese (i don't know how to spell it!) - any how, we would travel to a section of florida that was known for its greek heritage and there was a wonderful deli that sold this cheese. i brought it back on the plane to NY for my husband to try!

Any dish with feta cheese in it has to be allright with me. My favourite dish with feta at the moment is a grape leaf wrapped piece with pepperflakes and cooked on the BBQ.

MyKitchen, I think basil would be lovely in this instead of the dill. In fact, I'm going to try it, as soon as my garden basil reaches critical mass.

Neil, not boring at all! Greek salad is one of life's great salads.

Barb, unless your feta is terribly dried out to start with (and it should be stored in brine so it shouldn't be dried out), soaking in clean water to let some of the salt leach out will not hurt the cheese. But don't try it with pre-crumbled feta.

Sam, it's spanakopita!

Tatersmama, that pizza sounds delicious. I'm going to try it this weekend.

Arundhati, I've actually made paneer at home, and I love it!

Peter, thanks as always for adding to my knowledge of Greek food. You're right, of course, that Rhode Island "feta" is not PDO feta. And so here is our dilemma (same dilemma as with Parmigiano-Reggiano): do we support local producers, or stick to the original product? Or, as in this case, should we call the real thing feta, and the other "feta" or give it a new name entirely? Even within Europe, it's confusing. Oh, and one thing I don't like about this cookbook is that the author does not include the real names of ethnic dishes (like saganaki -- I wasn't sure but thought that was correct). So thanks for clarifying that, too.

Maybe Feta has gone the way of Kleenex and Xerox in the U.S.! In our house, it's "Honey, will you get me a kleenex" (not 'tissue' or 'Puff's') and likewise, "Honey, would you like feta on your salad" (not 'white crumbled cheese')!

I love feta cheese and am always looking for ways to incorporate it into my meals.Thank you

Shrimp dishes baked with tomatoes and feta like this are so good!

Shrimp, Tomato and Feta...oh my!!! Sounds like a fantastic combo!

Looks so yum! Will be hosting a dinner party soon and this will make the cut!

I wonder if this would work w/ langoustines--picked some up the other day from Trader Joe's (they were cheaper than shrimp, and also TJ's only had frozen cooked, or uncooked but also unpeeled, which was more than I wanted to face at the time).

Man, I want to go buy some feta now.

I learned quite a few things at summer camp: 1) A really great prank involving a mini creamer packet that makes it look like your eye explodes. 2) Enunciation = accent to some people. 3) Even band geeks can be popular. :)

I love feta, but never thought about combining it with shrimp. But I grew up only eating boiled shrimp with cocktail sauce, or fried shrimp with tartar sauce.

I've tried it other ways since becoming an adult, and now won't even eat fried shrimp anymore (but I will eat fried fish with tartar sauce still LOL).

I've never tried feta cheese... maybe this is a good option to try it!

Love feta cheese on a fresh salad from the garden...home grown lettuces, home grown tomatoes...some feta. Home grown or not. It's good. Thanks for hosting a the giveaway. :) ~~Rhonda

I went to summer camp once, but then some kid threw a large rock on me. That was the end of summer camp for me. Anyway, I'm used to eating shrimp one way, this looks like an interesting recipe.

No feta here Lydia...hope I can make some of my own one day. Everything feta sounds so good. Thanks for the background info; I lapped it up! That dish looks scrumptious indeed!

My favorite way to enjoy feta is either on a green salad with my father's homemade sweet and sour salad dressing, or in homemade spinach garlic feta bread :) Toasted lightly with some butter, or even dipped in warmed marinara is amazing!

I never went to traditional summer camp--just places like gymnastics camp and art camp. i also rarely cook greek food, but i loooove shrimp! will probably be making some tomorrow night!

Now I know what to do with the two blocks of feta in the fridge! Favorite Greek recipe...Lemon rice soup.

I love greek food! I first tried it in college and was especially taken with stuffed grape leaves. Mmmm!

Hi Lydia, Just FYI, by happenstance I tried a couple of changes with this GREAT dish, fresh tomatoes work beautifully, and there's no need for the oven (unless you want to use the oven, say), it cooks just find on the stovetop. PLUS -- spinach is a great addition, making a one-skillet meal. I just posted my recipe here, http://kitchenparade.com/2009/08/shrimp-with-tomatoes-spinach-feta.php but it wouldn't have happened without seeing your version (and all the others across food blog land too). Thanks for the inspiration for a truly excellent dish --