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Cheese and Sesame Balls

Cheese and Sesame Balls is a traditional Ancient Greek and Ancient Roman recipe for a starter of soft cheese blended with sesame seeds that are shaped into balls, fried and served in a honey and sesame seed sauce. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic Ancient Roman version of: Cheese and Sesame Balls.

prep time

15 minutes

cook time

20 minutes

Total Time:

35 minutes

Serves:

4

Rating:

Tags : Sauce RecipesCheese RecipesAncient Roman Recipes

Original Recipe

Philoxenus of Cythera (435 BC-380 BC) was a Greek dithyrambic poet.

An anecdote about Philoxenus was preserved by Athenaeus in Deipnosophistai as a part of a pseudo-philosophical
collection with the title Chreiai by the third-century B.C.E. Hellenistic comic writer Machon. Philoxenus from Cythera was known as an innovator in music and poetry, he served at the court of Dionysius, a tyrant of Siracuse, and died in Ephesus in 380/379 B.C.E. Machon’s anecdote focuses on the famous trait of Philoxenus’s character – gluttony: it satirizes Philoxenus’s wish to enhance the length of his neck to prolong the enjoyment from the food he consumes.

Piloxenus is credited as the original author of a poem entitled ‘Deipnon’ (The Dinner). This extravagant Deipnon in verse, which have been preserved by Athenaeus, author of The Deipnosophists, probably intended as a satire on the luxury of the court of Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse.

During the banquet, interminable dishes were consumed by the gigantic appetites of the guests: breads white as snow, fat eels and a conger eel to awake a god’s appetite; a ray fish, some tope, an electric ray, cuttlefishes, squids, octopuses, and a roasted lobster as large as the table; cuttlefishes dredged with flour; fried prawns (shrimp) with honey; desserts placed on green leaves and sweet – sour breads larger than a pot; an enormous chunk of roast tuna fish; a home raised pig’s belly, shoulder and kidneys; a kid’s roast head; lambs’ tripes, intestines, feet, head, noses seasoned with sylphium; boiled or roast kids and lambs; hares, chickens, partridges, and cushats; breads; golden honey with yogurt and fresh cheese; honey pies sprinkled with sesame seeds, cheese pies and fried desserts made with sesame seeds and cheese.

Many of these dishes, though known from other authors too, have no recipe associated with them. Here I am trying to re-create the recipe for sesame seeds and cheese.

Manouri is one of the joys of Greek cheese production. The word derives from the ancient Greek manos (tyros) = light, not hard (cheese) and highlights the cheese’s old origin. A good manouri is an exceptional fresh Greek cheese. It has delicate, milky taste, characteristic flavour, dense but smooth, almost spreadble texture and white colour. It's produced in Thessaly, Central and Western Macedonia from whey of goat or sheep milk, or mixture of them, with the addition of fresh full-fat milk and fresh cream. You’ll find it at the market in log-shaped rolls, or in pieces cut from a roll.

It is a great cheese for pounding in a mortar (as ancient Romans and Greeks were want to do with their cheese) so makes an appropriate base for this recipe. If you can'n get manouri I would suggest substituting a soft goat's cheese (they type you get in spreadable logs).

Modern Redaction

Ingredients:

300g manouri (or soft goat cheese)
40g + 2 tbsp plain flour
120ml thyme honey
150g (1 cup) hulled sesame seeds
olive oil for frying

Method:

Crumble the cheese by hand into a mortar. Add 1 tbsp honey, 3 tbsp sesame seeds, 2 tbs plain flour. Pound to combine then shape into balls, roll in the remaining flour to coat, then fry in hot olive oil until golden brown.

Gently heat the honey in a pan for a few seconds until runny, but don’t overheat it. Place the cheese balls on a plate covered with half the sesame seeds. Pour honey over them, sprinkle over the remaining sesame seeds and serve.