Two Amber Cakes of Grain: Quinoa and Semolina Couscous

Who wouldn’t like crispy crunchy little “pancakes” that are good for you? Shaped like mini-burgers, they are based on nutritious cooked grains like quinoa or semolina or millet or …. All the ones I’ve made have “special” ingredients that make them sing: tangy feta cheese is at the top of the list, but currants and chopped herbs are right up there.  The couscous cakes are infused with saffron, which gives them a golden color. These cakes are great topped with smoked fish as an appetizer, served with a vegetable stew for supper, pocketed for breakfast, or packed for lunch on a trip.  They’re more substantial than the mini vegetable frittatas that bake in muffin tins so they’re good for the road. And you can make them any size: mine were under 2 inches in diameter so they were basically finger food.

The quinoa version, the way I made it, is gluten-free. The semolina version is obviously wheat-based. Since I’m working on my own recipes, I might not have posted these two – one from Becky Selengut’s Good Fish, and the other from Yotam Ottolenghi’s column in the Guardian – but I had so many requests that I couldn’t resist sharing this discovery. I made Selengut’s quinoa cakes the way the recipe was written. Ottolenghi used barberries, which we don’t have here, so I substituted lemon-soaked currants as he suggested. I also halved the Ottolenghi recipe and converted it to American measurements. Because of the characteristics of semolina couscous, those cakes were drier and denser than the quinoa version.

When I first served the quinoa cakes, I topped them with smoked trout, sour cream and chives. The second time, when they accompanied the couscous cakes, I used that amazing Moroccan tomato jam from last summer. I also served the couscous cakes with an aromatic root vegetable stew.

Quinoa Cakes adapted from Becky Selengut, Good Fish

2/3 c quinoa, rinsed and drained

1 1/3 c water

Salt

¼ c minced shallots

1 tsp olive oil

¼ c flour – all-purpose or superfine brown rice or white rice flour

¼ c tangy feta cheese, crumbled

¼ c finely chopped Italian parsley, or a combination of parsley and chives

1 egg and 1 egg yolk (or use 2 eggs)

Freshly ground black pepper or a little red pepper sauce

Vegetable oil for frying

Selengut’s garnishes: smoked trout flakes, sour cream or Greek yogurt, chives

Cook the quinoa and set it aside to cool. (To cook quinoa, place the rinsed grains, water and a little salt in a saucepan, bring it to a boil, reduce the heat, cover the pot and let cook for 10-15 minutes.)

Cook the shallots in the olive oil until translucent and set them aside to cool.

Combine the quinoa, shallots, flour, feta and egg and add a little additional salt and the pepper. Form into small cakes (wet your hands if the grains stick) and fry them lightly in the vegetable oil over medium-high heat, until crisp and golden, about 5 minutes, turning them once.

Crispy Couscous and Saffron Cakes adapted from Yotam Ottolenghi, The Guardian

¼ tsp saffron threads

1 c boiling water

¾ c semolina couscous

1 tbsp dried currants

1 tbsp lemon juice

1 tbsp sugar

1/3 c Greek yogurt or sour cream

1 large egg, lightly beaten

1 tbsp chopped chives

¼ c crumbled feta cheese

Salt and black pepper

Butter and vegetable oil for frying

Place the saffron in a heatproof bowl and pour the boiling water over it. Let is infuse for a few minutes and stir in the couscous. Cover the bowl and let it stand for about 15-20 minutes.

Meanwhile, soak the currants in lemon juice for 20 minutes.

Fluff up the couscous with a fork and combine with the other ingredients.

Form into small cakes (wet your hands if the grains stick) and fry them lightly in the butter and vegetable oil over medium-high heat, until crisp and golden, about 5 minutes, turning them once.

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Collard Green Rolls with Freekah and Summer Squash

Crossover meals follow the intersection of late summer and early fall. We’re using up the last of our summer crops – zucchini and summer squash among others – while welcoming sturdy autumn vegetables, currently an abundance of greens. Our CSA has an explosion of chard and kale and collards so I’ve been working on creative ways to use them. Of course, there’s our popular crustless greens pie, which is quickly becoming a weekly event, though the ingredients can be cooked up and frozen for later.

Here large flat collard leaves are used as wrappers for a delicious filling of nutty freekah (toasted green wheat – ha, not a crazy joke), pan-roasted onions and summer squash, capers and raisins.  Cooked freekah is nutty in flavor and slightly crunchy, so it was a good counterpoint to the squash and seasonings and the deep green of the collards.  Cracked freekah is cooked much like white rice: bring to a boil two units of water to one of grains, add the grains, stir, turn the heat to a simmer, cover the pan and cook for about 20 minutes. You can make the freekah while preparing the rest of the ingredients.

I discovered that it’s best to leave the collard leaves whole while blanching them in the first step and cut out the toughest part of the stem later. You cut away less of the leaf in this method and there’s less chance of the filling’s leaking out during cooking. Braised in a little liquid in the oven, these are delicious on their own, or as a side dish with roast chicken.  I liked the combination of onions, raisins and capers. Another time, I might omit the capers and incorporate curry powder mixed with the onion and squash.

Collard Green Rolls with Freekah and Summer Squash

6 medium leaves collard greens

A big pot of salted water

½ c cracked freekah

1 c salted water

1 small onion, diced

Olive oil

1 yellow summer squash, trimmed and diced

2 tbsp raisins, plumped in very hot water for 10 minutes

1 tbsp capers

2 tbsp finely chopped parsley

A drop or two of red hot sauce (e.g., Tabasco, Sriracha)

Salt and pepper

Prepare the collard greens. Trim the long stems of the collards to the edge of the leaves (they can be set aside for another use). Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and plunge 2 leaves at a time into the water, submerging them. Cook about 2-3 minutes (depending on the age of the leaves – mine were just harvested and somewhat young so they cooked in about 2 minutes. Remove them to a colander and rinse with cold water to stop the cooking. Lay them flat on towels to cool and dry. Carefully cut the stiffest portion of the stem away from the leaves at the base.

Meanwhile, cook the freekah. Rinse the grains. Bring salted water to a boil, add the grains, stir, turn the heat to simmer, cover the pan and cook until the water has been absorbed and the grains are cooked (they’ll be somewhat crunchy), about 20 minutes. Set aside to cool.

Sauté the onion in olive oil until translucent and add the summer squash. Turn up the heat and sauté until the squash is barely cooked and just starting to brown. Set aside to cool.

Assemble the filling and stuff the collard greens. Combine the cooled freekah, vegetable mixture, raisins, capers, parsley and hot sauce. Season to taste with salt pepper. Divide the filling into six portions. Place each one on the collard leaf, toward the stem end (overlap the leaf where you cut the stem to enclose the filling. Fold in the sides and roll up tightly. Place in a baking pan sized to hold the rolls in one layer, seam-side down.

You can make this ahead to this point and refrigerate until ready to bake.

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Add a little water (or you could use tomato juice or vegetable broth) to the pan, cover with foil and bake for about 30 minutes. Let cool for a few minutes before serving.

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Summer Salad of Freekeh, Cucumbers and Beans

I’m not sure which I’m more excited about: lovely yellow and green beans that I grow in our garden, or the slightly nutty, whole grain organic freekeh from a regional (nearly local) source. If you ever have a garden and want to feel like a farmer, grow bush beans. With two eight-foot lines side-by-side in my tiny in-town (in-lawn) garden, we have been yielding a couple of quarts of beans a week for over a month, and we’re not done.  There’s nothing quite like stepping outside the kitchen door, picking something and having it on the plate within 10 minutes. Or less, if you think ahead enough to put the water on to boil.  But those are fleeting moments.

Freekeh, on the other hand, endures year-round and is a staple of the diets of many nationalities, from Eastern Europe to the Middle East. Maybe further afield. On the East Coast U.S. it is grown by the participants in Cayuga Organics, located in the Finger Lakes region of New York State. It requires less fertilizer than other types of wheat, so I hear, and therefore is a candidate for organic production. Our local health food store stocks it and I became intrigued when blogging about cooking with local ingredients during the dark days of winter. Freekeh comes from slow-roasted green spelt berries (spelt is a type of wheat lower in gluten than most). Freekeh is produced as whole berries and is also cracked. Mine was cracked and cooked in about 35-40 minutes.  I used a ratio of 1.5:1 water to grain, meaning 1½ cup of water to 1 cup of grain, starting them together in a pan (unlike other grains that you add to boiling water) and simmering them until tender.

Freekeh tastes like intense, robust cracked wheat and has none of the slightly pasty quality of its cousin couscous. I like it as a robust and flavorful base for summer salads. Here, I combined cooked freekeh with cubed salted cucumber and diced mint, tossed with light vinaigrette. Surrounded with my oh-so-local beans, this was a refreshing supper on a hot summer day.

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Wild Rice “Salad”

Feed a few, feed a lot. After a small family dinner of roast chicken and a medley of multi-colored and wild rice, I was inspired to make a wild rice salad for a family luncheon for 18 a few days later. Our local health food store sells beautiful wild rice – which is not rice at all but a grain – hand harvested by the White Indian tribe and sold to benefit their community. It is mixed with long grain white rice and is my rice medley of choice. However, they were sold out and I reverted to another good option from Lundberg. I rarely find that there’s enough wild rice in those mixes so I separately cooked a batch of plain wild rice. 

Combined with toasted almonds, dried currants and cherries and tossed with red wine vinaigrette, the salad was tasty but a little flat. So I added a little sherry vinegar for spark, walnut oil to complement the nuttiness of the wild rice, a few shakes of Tabasco sauce, and chopped pickled hot peppers.  Perfect. This salad keeps well and travels well, so is a welcome addition to a holiday buffet a few hundred miles away.

Wild Rice Salad (for 6)

1 c wild rice and whole grain rice medley (e.g., Lundberg)

1/3 c wild rice

Water

2 tbsp slivered almonds, toasted

2 tbsp dried sweet cherries, halved

1 tbsp dried currants

1 tbsp chopped pickled hot peppers

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp walnut oil

2 tsp red wine vinegar

1 tsp sherry vinegar

A few drops of Tabasco sauce or other red hot sauce

Salt

Place the rice medley and 3 times the amount of water in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Stir, turn the heat to low, cover the pan and let the rice simmer for about 50 minutes or until the water has been absorbed and the rice is cooked. Meanwhile, cook the wild rice the same way. (You could probably combine them but I didn’t.) When the rice mix and wild rice are cooked, remove to a wide bowl to cool, sprinkling them immediately with a little olive oil, salt and a few splashes of red wine vinegar. This keeps the rice from sticking together and allows flavors to be absorbed. You should be liberal with the salt since the salad will be served at room temperature. You can make this ahead to this point.

When ready to serve, add the almonds, dried fruit and hot peppers. Combine the oils and vinegars and dress the salad lightly. Adjust the seasonings, adding a little Tabasco sauce and a little more sherry vinegar if needed.

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Homemade Seasonal Granola

There’s nothing store-bought that I’ve come across that matches homemade granola. It’s crazy to think of spending 4-5 times the cost of the ingredients to make an inferior product. Especially when making your own is a cinch. Granola comes in all kinds of assortments, a veritable kitchen sink of ingredients. Rolled oats (organic preferably) constitute the base and to that you add nuts and seeds. With the addition of a sweetener such as honey or maple syrup (and a little vegetable oil to help the browning process), the mixture is baked in the oven. Dried fruits, if you’re using them, are added after the cooked grain mixture has cooled.

For the upcoming Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, I used seasonally compatible ingredients: pecans, pumpkin seeds, cinnamon and dried cranberries.  I happen to like  flax seeds, but sesame seeds work well too. Sprinkled on yogurt (oh yes, you can make that too), this makes a great and nutritious breakfast.  I typically halve this recipe but with family and friends around for Thanksgiving, I might need to make a second batch!

Granola

6 c rolled oats

1½ c chopped nuts (I used 1 c slivered almonds, ½ c pecans)

3/4 c mixed seeds (I used ¼ c flax seeds, ½ c pumpkin seeds)

1 tsp ground cinnamon

½ -¾ c honey

2 tbsp vegetable oil

1 c dried cranberries, lightly chopped

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Lightly warm the honey and oil together in a saucepan and pour the liquid over the oat mixture, stirring to distribute it. Spread in two large baking pans and bake for about 30 minutes, stirring frequently, until brown.

Cool in pan, add the dried cranberries, and store in a tightly covered container.

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Chard Stuffed with Winter Squash, Brown Rice and Currants

These flavorful little bundles are perfect for a fall meal, simply served with a salad of bitter greens, pears and walnuts or as a side dish for roast chicken. I wrapped lightly blanched leaves of young chard around a risotto-like combination of roasted winter squash and brown rice, perked with little bites of dried currants and a pinch of ground mace. The bundles were baked on top of blanched slivers of freshly dug carrots and chard stems (don’t throw them away, they’re delicious!). The texture of the slightly crisp slivered vegetables complemented the soft centers of the stuffed greens, and the flavors were a great combination.

This dish was a real workaround of the weather. First, with a pending snow and ice storm (yes, in October, do you believe it?) I harvested an armful of chard from my garden and tented the remaining crop just in case.  The chard was young, with delicate leaves and long leggy stems, so I was determined to use both.  Second, after the hurricane that we had here a few months ago, the local crops of winter squash were compromised. Our CSA warned us not to keep the squash too long and to wipe down the outside with hydrogen peroxide or diluted bleach when we took it home. Scary idea. While I normally would have stored the squash in our cold basement until sometime in the winter, we’re eating our way through the small crop right now. I used a portion of a small dumpling squash, dicing it into ¼-inch pieces and roasting it in the oven. For the rice, I decided on short-grain brown rice since it’s stickier than other types and I thought that it would hold its shape better.  I made the stuffing the day before and stored it in the refrigerator.

Chard Stuffed with Winter Squash, Brown Rice and Currants

6-8 stalks of green chard

1/3 c short grain brown rice

Water

1 c diced (1/4–1/3 inch cubes) firm winter squash (e.g., butternut or dumpling)

Olive oil

1 tbsp dried currants

¼ tsp ground mace (or nutmeg or cinnamon)

Salt and pepper

1 small carrot, cut into 1½-inch long matchsticks

Slice the stems from the leaves of chard, reserving both. Cut the stems into 1½-inch matchsticks and set aside.

Make the stuffing (this can be done a day in advance and refrigerated). Add rice to boiling water and cook it, at a gentle boil, until al dente, about 30 minutes. Drain and set aside. Toss the diced squash in a little olive oil and salt and roast in the oven at 400 degrees until soft and slightly brown, about 10 minutes, turning part way through roasting. Remove to a bowl to cool. Combine the rice and squash, add the dried currants and spice of choice, and season with salt and pepper.

When ready to assemble and bake, bring a large pot of water to boil and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Plunge the chard leaves in the boiling water and remove them quickly to an ice water bath. Drain the leaves immediately and place them on a towel to flatten and lightly dry. Add the carrots and chard stems to the boiling water to blanch them and remove them to a baking dish, sprinkling them with salt and a few drops of olive oil.

To make the chard bundles, place a spoonful of the rice mixture (amount depends on the size of the leaves) on each chard leaf, roll up from the stem end, adjusting to make sure no filling is visible and folding in the sides to make a neat package. Place on top of the carrots and chard stems. Bake for about 25 minutes.

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Summer Salads with Whole Grains

Whole grains lightened up with raw or lightly cooked vegetables and chopped herbs make a great centerpiece to summer meals. In the past couple of weeks, I’ve made two, with very different results. The first was quinoa tossed with tiny cubes of raw yellow zucchini (you could lightly steam it instead). It was dressed with lemon juice and olive oil and tiny flecks of lemon peel, parsley and mint. I added the lemon juice and a pinch of salt to the quinoa while it was warm, tossing in the rest of the ingredients right before serving at room temperature. As I found out from the leftovers, this can be made hours or even a day ahead, which is great for summer schedules. Simple and flavorful with just the right amount of tang and crunch.

The second one was inspired by Martha Rose Shulman’s New York Times column called “Recipes for Health.”  I read the New York Times online every day and find that some of the best cooking ideas are not in “Dining and Wine,” as you might guess, or even in the Magazine. They’re in sections like “Health” (where Shulman writes) or in City Room, where urban forager Ava Chin mines the parks and sidewalks for edible weeds.  This salad combines cooked farro with tomatoes, cucumbers, parsley, dill and basil. Dressed with a touch of olive oil and red or white wine vinegar and garnished with tiny black olives and a little feta cheese, this was like a Greek salad with grains.  This salad benefited from marinating for half an hour or longer. Again, simple and delicious.   

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Mushroom Quinoa Soup

An aromatic, hearty soup for a cold spring day. A gluten-free version of mushroom barley soup, made with carrots and leeks and garnished with flavorful lovage. I used homemade beef stock but chicken stock or vegetable or mushroom broth would work also. This was a delicious antidote for the snappish weather during a break from preparing the gardens for spring planting.

Mushroom Quinoa Soup

1 lb (more or less) cremini or Portobello mushrooms (or a mixture of several kinds)

2 tsp (or more) butter or vegetable oil

1 leek, washed, trimmed and minced (white and light green sections

2 carrots, peeled and diced into ¼-inch cubes

4 c good quality chicken or beef stock or vegetable or mushroom broth

Salt and pepper to taste (or use a splash of wheat-free soy sauce)

1/3 c red quinoa

Lovage or parsley, torn into small pieces

Clean the mushrooms and chop them into small pieces, about 1/3-inch. Working in batches, heat about a teaspoon of butter or oil in a wide pan over medium-high heat. Add enough mushrooms to cover the bottom of the pan without overcrowding and let them cook undisturbed for a few minutes until they exude their juices. Stir and cook until tender. Remove them to a bowl, wipe out the pan and repeat with the remaining mushrooms.

Heat another teaspoon or two of butter in a soup pot and stir in the leeks and carrots, stirring to coat with the oil. Cook until the leek is just transparent. Add the mushrooms and stock or broth and cook at a simmer for about 5 minutes until the mixture feels well combined. Add the quinoa and simmer until the quinoa is cooked, about 20 minutes. Add chopped herbs to the soup and let it sit for a few minutes before serving with additional herb garnish.

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Dark Days Week 16: Pan-roasted Mushrooms and Roasted Tomatoes on Polenta

At one time, communities throughout the US had their own gristmills, where farmers could take their grain to be ground, leaving a small amount for the miller as his pay. We still see remnants of those buildings throughout the northeast. A couple of weeks ago, a writer named Scott Peacock, who collaborated with late Edna Lewis on a cookbook about southern food, was interviewed on NPR about his “Alabama Project,” a series of interviews with older folks about their food memories. One of the interesting stories compared biscuits and cornbread. Rural families routinely grew their own corn and took it to the community mill for grinding and therefore cornbread became a mealtime staple. However, wheat flour had to be purchased and therefore, with the family’s limited resources, biscuits were treated as precious. At breakfast time, people would fill up on the previous evening’s cornbread since there wouldn’t be enough biscuits to satisfy their hunger.

We don’t grow wheat in any quantity around here either, and the local flour mills that still operate in places like Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, source organically grown wheat from the Midwest. Corn, for us too, is another matter. There still are functioning mills, including one in Pittstown, New Jersey, that I believe organically raises corn and grinds its own cornmeal.  Freshly ground meal or flour has a shorter shelf life than commercial flour (no surprise) and I was pushing my luck with a bag of coarse cornmeal that I purchased at our local health food store. It was stored in an airtight container but I probably should have refrigerated or frozen it.

Although the Dark Days Challenge, a blog event that challenges participants to use only sustainable, organic, local and ethical ingredients, has folded for the year, I am continuing through to the original April 15 close. I find it a useful forum to focus on the topic of local, organic food, especially in the winter when little is growing. This week, I took advantage of local cornmeal, local Toma cheese, my homemade butter, organic tomatoes that I harvested at our CSA last summer, roasted with garlic and thyme, and froze, and our ever present local mushrooms, which I pan roasted with winter savory and thyme. I made the polenta in the microwave since I had little time on a weeknight to cook it on the stove (which I find tedious) or in the oven (my usual method). Polenta is served either as a relatively soft mush, as I did here, or is spread in a cake tin to cool, after which it is sliced and grilled.

Roasted tomatoes are great to have on hand since they become an instant sauce or add depth of flavor to soups and stews. I typically use up the last of the plum tomatoes this way, since by the end of the season, I’ve had it with canning. However, if you’re craving tomatoes in the winter, even the store bought plum tomatoes will be improve by roasting them.  I roast halved tomatoes in olive oil, cut side down, at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes, remove the skins and turn down the heat to 250 degrees and roast until slightly leathery but not dried out, about 2 hours.

Polenta

½ c coarse stone ground cornmeal

1 ¾ c water

½ tsp salt

1 tsp butter or olive oil

¼ c grated cheese (Cherry Grove Toma or Parmesan)

Oven method: mix cornmeal, water and salt in an ovenproof baking dish, cover and place in a preheated 325 degree oven. Uncover after 20 minutes and still in the butter or oil. Re-cover and bake for another 30-40 minutes, stirring a few times, until cooked. It should still be a little soupy. Mix in cheese if using, and serve immediately for soft polenta or spread in a cake pan until firm. Refrigerate and slice to grill.

Microwave version: Mix ingredients and microwave, covered with a plate for 8 minutes. Remove carefully (dish will be very hot), stir in butter or oil and return to oven, covered. Microwave for another 5 minutes, remove and stir again. It should be starting to clump. Repeat once or twice more, or until the cornmeal is cooked (taste it) and there is still some liquid in the pot. It will continue to cook. Mix in cheese if using, and serve immediately for soft polenta or spread in a cake pan until firm. Refrigerate and slice to grill.

Pan-roasted Mushrooms

1 lb mushrooms, preferably a mixture of types

1-2 tbsp olive oil

1 shallot, minced

1 clove garlic, minced

Salt and pepper

3/4 tsp dried thyme or winter savory or 1+ tsp fresh thyme or savory

Fresh herbs such as lovage, parsley, or tarragon

Optional: butter

Clean and slice the mushrooms. Working in batches that cover the bottom of a pan in one layer, sauté the mushrooms in olive oil over medium high heat until browned on one side. Toss. Add a portion of the shallot, garlic and seasonings and continue to cook for a few minutes until the shallots are cooked. Add a touch of butter if desired and remove to a bowl. Repeat with the rest of the mushrooms.

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Gingered Butternut Squash with Farro and Mushrooms

Our  “cellar” (freezer, fridge and cold basement) and pantry are still full of fresh local organic produce and preserved foodstuffs. Around here, very few fresh ingredients will emerge during the dark days of winter so we need to be mindful of what we have in store and manage the supply. No matter when harvested, whole categories seem to deteriorate at the same time. This was a great growing season for winter squash and we have a bounty of it. However, in my most recent weekly check, it was the butternut squash that needed to be cooked or squandered.

One of my favorite ways to cook butternut squash is to cube it and cook it in what I call a shallow water boil (more than a braise but less than a potful), flavored with grated or minced ginger until just tender (mine took under 5 minutes). I then remove the squash to drain, boil down the juices and pour them over the squash. If I were serving this only as a side dish, I’d cut the squash in ¾-inch cubes. Since I planned on serving it also with farro and mushrooms, I cut this squash into 1/3-inch cubes, roughly the size of the quartered mushrooms.

Farro is a healthy wheat grain of ancient origin and high nutritional value, since it still has some bran attached.  Like brown rice, it takes a while to cook so you can make more than you need and freeze or refrigerate it for another day. I used organic farro and cooked it just like white rice. The ratio is 2 parts water to 1 part farro, although I watch it and sometimes have had to increase the water. Boil the water, add a little salt, add the farro grains (rinse them first to remove the dust), turn the heat to very low, cover the pot and let cook for about 25 minutes, more or less depending on the grains. I check mine partway through to make sure there’s enough water.

This particular squash, farro and mushroom medley was topped with winter savory that I picked last summer from our CSA and air-dried, which turned out to be a deep counterpoint to the savory since their pepper tones complemented each other very well. Now that was a discovery worth noting.

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