Dakos cheesecake

I ate this savoury cheesecake last year in Santorini and absolutely adored it.  The traditional way to serve Dakos is as a salad where pieces of barley rusks (also known as Dakos) are loosely topped with tomatoes, cheese and black olives but I loved the way this cheesecake style looked on the plate and how it messed with my head!

Ingredients
serves 4

6 large tomatoes, deseeded, cut into 0.5cm pieces
1/4 red onion, finely chopped
1 tbsp red-wine vinegar
2 tbsp olive oil, plus 1 tbsp extra
½ tsp ground allspice
Salt and black pepper
120g feta, roughly crumbled
250g soft cream
120g Cretan dakos (barley rusks or any other type of rusk)
5 tbsp butter, melted
2 tsp dried oregano
a few capers

Method
Put the chopped tomatoes, onion, red wine vinegar, two tablespoons of oil and the allspice in a bowl, add a good pinch of salt and black pepper, stir gently and set aside.

In a food processor bitz the barley rusk to a fine crumb then melt the butter and mix with the rusk. 

Line a 15cm cake tin with parchment paper (base and sides). Press the mixture into the tin, pushing down with the back of spoon to get it as compact as possible.

Next, blitz the feta in the food processor (clean out the rusk crumbs) and mix in the cream cheese. Add a teaspoon of the dried oregano.

Pour the cheese mix gently onto the biscuit base and level it out.  Put in the fridge for a few hours for the Dakos style cheesecake to solidify. 

Take it out of the fridge only a few minutes before serving.

Place the tomato mix on top of the cheesecake and sprinkle with some some oregano. Garnish with a few capers.

Carefully remove from the cake tin and remove the parchment paper.