“Whipped cream isn’t whipped cream at all if it hasn’t been whipped with whips, just like poached eggs isn’t poached eggs unless it’s been stolen in the dead of the night.”

Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

This way of aerating feta cheese is a quick and attractive addition to anything that might need a little extra creaminess and a bit more salt. It’s good with sizzling Sichuan green beans, or with Jersey Royal potatoes.

It’s also good served as a dip. It looks beautiful.

For a development of this, try leaving out the capers and nigella seeds and adding a crushed clove of garlic and a quarter of a cucumber. Serve topped with chopped pistachios and mint.

Goes well with luscious and lovely filo lamb pie instead of the yoghurt…. or any kind of minced lamb with spices wrapped in various types of pastry.

Nisha Parmar serves hers with roasted harissa carrots and crispy chickpeas.

Ravinder Bhogal serves hers with melon pickled with star anise, cinnamon and pepper.

On the other hand, the food supply company, Belazu, recommends mixing in zhoug, and serving as part of a mezedes.

Cookery demonstrator, Gee Cartwright, suggests whipping feta with ricotta, lemon and yoghurt, and then serving with warm honey and onions fried with cumin and chilli flakes and sweetened with a little maple syrup. Sounds heavenly!

Great with charred lamb and fattoush

Recipe for flagellated feta

Ingredients

• 200g/7 oz feta
• 3 tbsp greek yoghurt… or more if you want it to be looser. Some people use the same weight as the feta, ie 200g
• 2 tbsp lemon juice…. Plus maybe a little zest, a sprig of rosemary, or a chopped spring onion to garnish
• Indonesian long black pepper
• nigella seeds – optional
• chopped capers – optional
• oregano – optional
• garlic – optional
• olive oil – optional
• 1 tsp sumac – optional

Method

1. Mash feta with yoghurt using a fork, flagellate in the lemon juice and the pepper… garnish.

Music to listen to

Doris Day singing Whip-Crack-Away