Last weekend, we made our first professional Costco run sincesigning up for club in July. We stocked up on a bunch of factors we'd determined Costco to have the first-class charges on, inclusive of cereal, milk, raisins, sugar, olive oil?And a four.Five-pound bag of quinoa for $10. Wedabbled a touch bit with quinoa closing 365 days, whilst we picked up a field of it on sale after Passover, and we cherished it sufficient to keep an eye fixed fixed out for incredible gives on it considering that then in hopes of trying it again. However, till currently, the amazing charge we'd seen modified into $4 a pound at Trader Joe's, which became more than we were prepared to pay. When we placed the stuff at Costco for round 1/2 that fee, we decided it turned into time to choose some up and attempt experimenting a few more.
So, after bringing home the massive bag, Brian went on a hunt for precise quinoa recipes. The first one he attempted emerge as this Quinoa with Apple and Sage from the Live Well Network, for which we took place to have most of the substances handy; I'd picked up some apples from the farmers' market, and getting a tablespoon of easy sage off the first-rate sage plant in our the front outdoor emerge as little one's play. He did tweak the recipe just a bit, substituting some onion for the shallot and simple raisins for the golden raisins, however he figured the ones adjustments wouldn't have an effect at the flavor too much.
The dish grow to be quite easy to make, and it changed into indeed very flavorful?Nearly an excessive amount of so, for my part. In addition to the faint nuttiness of the quinoa itself, there were the mingled flavors of apple, raisins, onion, sage, cinnamon, cayenne, curry powder, and the savoryPenzey's vegetable soup base we used for the broth, all competing for hobby. To me, this felt discover it irresistible modified into a chunk of a sensory overload. I still appreciated it, but I discovered the revolt of flavors a piece too overpowering. My inclination is to do this dish again quickly, however next time, pass over the teaspoon of curry powder and let the much less complex flavors within the dish get up for themselves.
Pleased with this achievement, he went directly directly to the following quinoa recipe on his list: Quinoa with Leeks and Herbs from A Couple Cooks. Unlike the first one, wherein all of the elements are cooked collectively, this recipe begins offevolved out with cooked quinoa, so Brian decided to attempt some factor else he'd been curious about: cooking quinoa inside the strain cooker. The instructions at Hip Pressure Cooking claim it's miles feasible to do this in just one minute, however like maximum pressure-cooker recipes, this is a bit misleading; what it truely manner is that it only spends one minute cooking at full strain. Counting the complete time it takes for the cooker to go back as a whole lot as strain and then depressurize later on, it is more like 15 minutes general?Best approximately 5 mins an awful lot less than the time it takes to cook dinner the quinoa for the alternative recipe at the stovetop. But it does pop out high-quality and tender.
The right statistics is that, as soon as your quinoa is executed, the rest of the dish comes collectively in mins. Just saut? The leeks for a few minutes, chop and toast the walnuts, and stir all of it together with salt, pepper, and clean sage and thyme (yet again supplied via our herb bed). This wasn't almost as complicated a dish because the primary one, but the various leeks and the herbs, it still packed quite a wallop of flavor. In reality, those inexperienced, natural flavors quite tons overpowered the quinoa itself, and as for the walnuts, you may first-rate inform they had been there by means of the occasional crunch. Of route, a chunk of texture range in a dish is top notch, but it does appear to be a chunk of a waste to apply an ingredient as pricey as walnuts?And, for that matter, quinoa?In case you cannot honestly taste them.
Indeed, Brian's observation was that it seemed the creators of both recipes seemed to be trying to deal with the "odd" flavor of quinoa by basically drowning it out with other, stronger flavors. That seems kind of silly to me, because if you don't like the flavor of quinoa, why would you eat it instead of some cheaper source of starch like rice or buckwheat? Sure, it's healthy stuff with plenty of protein, but it's not exactly the only food that's high in protein, and many of the others (eggs, chicken drumsticks, tofu) are cheaper. It seems to me the best reason to eat quinoa is because you like eating quinoa, so the best quinoa recipe would be one that highlights and complements the unique flavor of this pseudo-grain rather than covering it up.
Fortunately, Brian's still got one more quinoa recipe on his list to try—a sort of quiche-like concoction with spinach, eggs, and Greek yogurt. So we'll probably try that later in the month and see how it does at letting the flavor of this funky ingredient come through.
