Anari

Anari is Cyprus's whey cheese, made from the whey drained off during halloumi production, which is why the two are almost always made on the same day in the same kitchen. The whey is heated until soft white curds rise to the surface, and those curds are either eaten fresh within a day or two or salted and dried into a hard cheese for grating.

Fresh anari is soft, unsalted and mild to the point of blandness on its own, which is the point of it. It is served with honey and crushed nuts as anari me meli, and it fills bourekia, the fried Cypriot pastries finished with cinnamon and icing sugar. Dried salted anari is grated over pasta and over pourgouri, in the role dried mizithra plays on the mainland.

Fresh anari is genuinely perishable and is best bought on the day it is wanted, since it turns sour quickly after that. Ricotta is the nearest substitute outside Cyprus, being the same sort of whey cheese, but it holds more water and needs draining in a sieve first, or a bourekia filling will loosen and leak out into the frying oil.