Cooking halloumi/wet food on stainless steel without sticking

Question

I've got a set of all-clad stainless steel pans I've been able to master cooking most foods without sticking and too much burn remains. Even eggs I've got right.

One thing I constantly struggle with is haloumi. I pre heat the pan for 2mins. Water drops dance on the surface. I add some olive oil (about 2tbsp in a 24cm skillet). Stir it around and let it heat then add my halloumi cheese. And it consistently sticks leaving a mess on the pan. I leave it for a minute or too and it never releases. And just becomes completely burnt.

I know halloumi is rather wet cheese so I've tried paper toweling it dry before adding to the pan. Same result.

So how do I cook wet foods like this on stainless pans without sticking?

Answer 1

First things first, make sure you're keeping that pan on high while the haloumi is in there... you can get the pan as hot as you want, but the water in that cheese will cool it off right quick.

Though in my experience, sometimes halloumi just sticks. When I'm cooking something potentially sticky, I always have a nice-quality, even, sharp fish spatula on hand in case I need to save it. If you really put some pressure on it, scraping along the bottom of the pan like you're removing a sticker from a window with a razor blade, you should be able to save your nice sear. As long as you're applying even pressure and using a flat bottomed pan and have a nice quality fish spatula, you 'shouldn't' gouge it... though that's the reason I use heavy commercial steel cookware from companies like Winco, which I could replace pretty easily and cheaply. ;-)