Monday, March 28, 2011

Black Quinoa

Quinoa is a seed from South America that has a high percentage of protein. The protein is unusually complete for the human diet for a plant food.

As Finn and I were filling our plastic bag with black quinoa at Sunflower, A woman beside me asked how I wash it. Having never cooked black quinoa, I was glad she did ask, otherwise I would have cooked it sans ablutions. And now reading the Wikipedia link, this is to remove the mildly toxic saponins that can cause gastric issues.

As it is, we decided that cheese cloth would work and I ended up using a kitchen towel.

Also, having forgotten the cooking time as being similar to white rice I cooked it pasta style in a lot of salted water for 45 minutes. I don't think it really suffered texturally but I will definitely cook it rice style (2:1 water to quinoa, steaming method, 18 to 20 minutes) next time.

I generally treat cooked quinoa as I would rice. In last night's case I stirred in cheese and frozen peas. Delish.

Horrible Picture of Cheesy Peasey Black Quinoa

It was lightly sweet and earthy. I definitely have to try a tabouli with this nutritious seed.

Shrimp13

4 comments:

  1. I have had this before and I realy like it, it seems "nuttier" than white quinoa. I also find that it needs a bit more cooking time than rice though. I like it with red beans.

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  2. Ah! With red beans sounds brilliant! So maybe I did ok with my inadvertent long cooking after all!

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  3. I recently bought a bulk batch of the black Quinoa from sunflower as well. I am a fan of red Quinoa, but the black is just as delicious! I have never rinsed before, but now I certainly see why and will do so going forward! A great suggestion, add a chicken bouillon cube to the water and let it cook. In another pan, saute 4-5 baby Portabella mushrooms & sliced dried black mission figs in a tsp of Ghee. Once the Quinoa is cooked, stir in mushroom & fig mixture, top with a sprinkle of goat cheese and viola! This is great as a side or even atop a Spinach Salad.

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  4. Nice one, Jessica. I am new to the darker quinoas so ideas are definitely appreciated.

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