how to say and cook quinoa

Dear Kitchenista,

Is is KEE-NO-AH or is it KEEN-WAH?

When this grain/seed first starting popping up in food magazines and store shelves I confidently pronounced it as KEE-NO-AH. I mean, it sounded fittingly ancient and distantly Mayan when I said it like that, so I went with it. Until the moment I actually heard someone pronounce it as KEEN-WAH, and became fraught with chef-y self-doubt. But not to worry. AskTheKitchenista to the phonetic rescue!  According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary: “the primary pronunciation is disyllabic (2 syllables) with the accent on the first syllable (/ˈkiːnwɑː/ keen-wah). It may also be pronounced with three syllables, with the stress on either the first syllable ( /ˈkiːnoʊ.ə/ kee-noh-ə) or on the second (/kwɨˈnoʊ.ə/ kwi-noh-ə).” So rest your assured that whether you employ two syllables or three when you speak of this protein-and-nutrient rich food, you will be culinarily correct.

Top  (Almost Ten) List of Why You Should Try Quinoa or Eat More of It.

1. It is nutty and delicious and fluffy.
2. It has high protein content compared to other “grains” and is by itself a complete protein.
3. It is gluten-free and relatively non-irritating to the digestive tract (unlike many other grains.)
4. It comes in white and a lovely red color too.
5. It is as easy as cooking rice, can even be made in a rice cooker and it’s hard to ruin.
6. It is high in fiber and phosphorous, B vitamins, magnesium, calcium and iron which in itself could keep you regular, peppy, headache-free, and strong of bone and blood.
7. It can be breakfast food (like oatmeal, added to nuts and honey and cinnamon) or dinner (like rice pilaf, added to aromatics, savory spices, or veggies).
8. It can be a salad (like today’s recipe) or a side (um, like today’s recipe).

Tweeking Notes: When I came across this recipe in a recent Food & Wine, I instantly wanted to try it and even put a version of it on my Rancho La Puerta spa menu. The original called for using Kamut or Faro which are both a form of wheat berry, and though they are both low in gluten, they still can be problematic for those of you (me) who are gluten sensitive. So…I gave it a try with quinoa and loved the outcome. Since quinoa cooks much quicker than faro or kamut, I eliminated the step of cooking the grains with a “bouquet garni” (a cheesecloth bundle of carrots, onion, vanilla and celery) and opted instead for just cooking the quinoa in vegetable or chicken broth for that veggie-fortified flavor.

Quinoa Strawberry, Orange and Baby Spinach Salad
Adapted from Gastronauts, San Francisco as seen in Food & Wine

Serves 4-6

INGREDIENTS

1/2 vanilla bean or a 1/2 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract
6 tablespoons olive oil
1 cups quinoa
2.5 cups low sodium vegetable or chicken stock
2 oranges
1 medium shallot, minced
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
Salt
Freshly ground pepper
10 strawberries, quartered
2 packed cups baby spinach

PROCEDURE

1. Split the vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape the seeds into a small bowl. In a medium saucepan, heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil. Add shallots and cook over medium/low flame until softened and translucent, (not browned) about 4 minutes. Add quinoa over moderately high heat, stirring, until toasted, 1 minute. Add 2 cups of stock and bring to a boil. Cover and simmer over low heat, until the  quinoa has absorbed most of the liquid, about 25-30 minutes. Turn off heat and allow the quinoa to sit, covered for an additional 5 minutes.

2. While the quinoa is cooking, finely grate the zest of 1 orange into the bowl with the vanilla seeds.   Add the lemon juice. Whisk in the remaining olive oil. Using a knife, cut along the sides of the oranges to remove the peel and white pith and expose the fruit flesh underneath. Holding the “naked” orange in one hand, and using a sharp pairing knife, cut in between the membranes to release the orange sections (supremes) into the bowl. Squeeze the juice remaining from the membranes into the bowl. Add the strawberries and let stand for 10 minutes.

3. Remove cover from quinoa and fluff with a fork. Place the quinoa in a large bowl and fold in the raw baby spinach until it is wilted. Add the fruit mixture/dressing to the quinoa and spinach and gently combine. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Saponin Alert: Quinoa naturally comes with a bitter coating called saponin which should be rinsed off. Most quinoa that you buy in the U.S. has been pre-rinsed and dried, so this is not an really an issue, but if you buy your quinoa in bulk (those bins where you measure out your own), or from an imported source, I recommend soaking the quinoa for 15 minutes in cool water, then draining with a fine sieve before cooking. Check your packaging, or when in doubt, just soak and rinse.

 

egg salad

Now that you have the secret to perfectly peeled hard-boiled eggs you can make egg salad. That’s right, I said egg salad. And yes, it is quite the mundane thing to feature, I know. But, it is a perfect example of an ordinary, everyday preparation that people love, one of  those creamy, comforting foods that you crave on softly toasted bread or a good cracker, but don’t exactly know how to make. You may be scoffing, but I can’t tell you how many young students I have, a lot of them newly married, that surprise me with requests for the most basic tutorials: scrambled eggs, mashed potatoes, standard roast chicken, a medium-rare steak, cooking broccoli.

I like to keep a container of egg salad in the fridge most of the time.  It’s a great quick-reach protein for a snack. Having it  on hand means I’ll reach for it instead of something not-so-healthy when I’m starving.  It means my daughter can make her own lunch.  You don’t need any special tools to make it, but having one of these handy-dandy slicers makes it easier and more uniform than trying to rough chop the eggs. I slice them once with the egg placed horizontally…

…then lift the sliced egg, holding it together gently. Open up the slicer, turn the egg 45 degrees, place it back on and cut again. See.

Put all the chopped eggs in a bowl. Add your favorite mayo, (I like Spectrum Organic…no preservatives or other mystery ingredients…and it has a nice acid/sweet balance) roughly 3/4 teaspoon (more or less according to taste) per egg. Add some Dijon mustard, roughly 1/4 teaspoon per egg, salt, and pepper. Variations on this can include curry powder, chopped green olives, capers, cayenne, minced chives, green onions, dill, parsley or celery. Mix it all up.

There is nothing like fresh egg salad sandwich on warmly toasted bread with a little shredded lettuce, maybe a thin slice of good tomato. I love it too on these crispy, peppery gluten-free crackers from Mary’s Gone Crackers, that I am happy to say can be found in most big chain grocery stores. No one is paying me to say this. I just have gone crackers for these crackers in all flavors. (And they have pretty delicious GF cookies too.)

ask the kitchenista: perfectly peeled hard-boiled eggs

Dear Kitchenista;

The last time I tried to make Deviled Eggs they went to Hell! What is the trick to cooking hard boiled eggs so the peel comes off easily and I don’t end up with eggs that look like the surface of the moon?   — Sick of Egg Salad In Seattle, Ann G.

Dear Ann,

I feel your pain. I know that sinking feeling when you start to peel a boiled egg and you just know it’s going to play hard to get.  You’ll be there forever, picking off one tiny chip of shell at a time, instead of it just slipping off nice and easy like a slinky nightgown. (Why am I using sexy metaphors for hard-boiled eggs? Must discuss with therapist. Must get therapist.)

Getting perfectly peeled eggs was a hit-and-miss mystery to me until I went to culinary school and we had to do a classic Nicoise Salad in our Level 1 class, with all it’s composed elements. I learned the hard facts and tried-and-true techniques for getting the eggs right:

1. Don’t Use Fresh. This is one time you don’t want farm fresh. If you only have fresh eggs to work with, try adding 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda to the cooking water, (to change the pH of the albumen), but continue to follow the rest of the directions below, as well. In all cases, bring eggs to room temp if you can before boiling, or let the eggs sit in room temp water for 5 minutes before heating.

2. Start eggs in cold water, then boil. Place the eggs in a medium to large pot so that they are not too crowded and can be submerged in cold water, covering them by at least an inch. Bring the water and eggs to a rapid boil, uncovered. Turn off flame and cover the pot. Allow the eggs to sit in the hot water for 11-12 minutes. While the eggs are sitting, prepare an ice bath by filling a large bowl halfway with ice, then filling the rest of the way with water.

3. Transfer the hot eggs to iced or very cold water. The cooking method gets you perfectly cooked eggs, but it’s the shock of the cold water that gets you eggs you can peel effortlessly. The ice water forces the membrane surrounding the white and the egg itself to shrink instantly and detach from the shell. You’ll still have to crack the egg, and gently tear through the membrane in some cases, but once you do the peel should come away easily.

4. Peel under water. Crack the egg by gently rolling it along a hard surface, shattering the shell into many small pieces. Hold the egg under the cool water in the ice bath, or under cool running water while peeling. The water helps by getting under the membrane and helping to separate the shell from the egg more efficiently.

If all else fails. Make egg salad.

 

 

 

meanwhile, back at the ranch

I may be having a hard time landing back in the reality of my day to day life. I admit it. I want to drift back to Rancho La Puerta and remember the classes I taught and the good food made with just-plucked ingredients. There were newer recipes I’ve yet to share with you, and some of my favorites that you’ve seen but may want to revisit like shrimp, white beans and arugula, polenta fries, sweet and sour red cabbage and radicchio, kale and faro with toasted coconut, cabbage and beet borscht, red wine poached pears, my pesto trio, and the citrus cumin roasted carrots.  I’m dreaming of the glorious mountain hikes each morning, the packed schedule of fitness classes taught by impossibly good-looking, glowing, healthy teachers, the summer-camp camaraderie that develops with people you just met but vow to know the rest of your life as you are leaving. Did I mention the massages? I had one treatment called WASU. To say it was a massage that you get while floating in a pool maintained at 94 degrees F, would be like saying tea is a bunch of leaves thrown into hot water. There’s so much more to both of these that warms, relaxes, transports, reveals, stimulates and transcends.

This is a picture of the Cocina Del Canta, the gorgeous cooking school facility built on the ranch just 6 years ago on the grounds of the farm that provides year-round produce for the ranch’s main kitchen. You are looking at three kinds of kale, cabbage, both red and greet, and swiss chard as big as elephant ears, as demonstrated by my husband.

My husband, while an enthusiastic supporter of all that I do (and cook), he is no photographer, so I don’t have any great photos of the classes in progress, but here are a few. Then I promise, I’m going to stop. Next post will be in present time: Father’s Day Fried Chicken.

 

 

 

 

 

ask the kitchenista: low-fat ice cream

Dear Kitchenista;

I recreated your simple Dulce de Leche ice cream from the class I took with you (to go with that upside-down amazing rosemary pear tart.) So, with summer on our doorstep…I love ice cream and want to make more of it…but with less fat. What is the best way to achieve lower fat, but retain great flavor and creamy texture? Cornstarch? Gelatin? Eggs? I’ve never made it with eggs. A truly delicious, creamy, low-fat banana ice cream is my goal for this summer. Any advice? Thanks for any help (and let me know of any cooking classes in NYC coming up!) — Brad A.
Brad,
Who doesn’t love ice cream? While browsing my photos for an appropriate one for this post I came across this one (above)  of my mother, circa 1946 or so. Just after WWII, somewhere in France…Lyon, I think. How sweet that cone must have seemed after her years in concentration camps and then in hiding with false identities and little hope. How sweet was life itself to have survived those years?  Ice cream, whether you’ve survived a war, or simply your work week can be one of life’s great pleasures. Do you really want to mess with it and make it low fat? It happens to be my #1 guilty pleasure. I can eschew gluten without batting an eye. I can stare down pasta, candy, chocolate (mostly) and cupcakes and never feel the urge to splurge. But if there is even a petrified crystalized rhomboid of the stuff in my freezer, hiding in a partially crushed and sticky container, I will not be able to resist eating it for very long.
And after having tried and tossed  the half-eaten containers of almost every non-fat, low-fat frozen concoction offered around the city and in malls and airports nationwide, my conclusion is always: “It ain’t worth the calories!” Keep in mind that to achieve decent flavor and texture (also known in the biz as “mouthfeel”) in most low-fat ice cream or frozen yogurts fillers, gums, artificial flavorings, artificial sweeteners a lot of added sugar and air are employed to fill the shoes of fat. In the race for the svelte waist, I feel (and my nutritionist hubby does too) that fat is not the enemy as much as sugar and carbs and that a moderate amount of fat (even saturated animal fat) is not going to kill you. (It’s the portion size and frequency that might!)  So-called lighter frozen desserts like sorbets and sherberts (one has dairy, the other doesn’t) may have a lighter feel while eating them, and may even contain fresh fruit, but their usual high sugar content takes them out of the “healthy” and “lite” category. Other sweeteners, perceived as healthy, like honey, maple syrup and agave, are not without calories. In fact, your body reacts to these sweeteners much in the same way it does with white sugar: blood sugar rushes, insulin surges, and metabolism to fat.
David Lebovitz, the former Chez Panisse pastry chef, and author of The Perfect Scoop, answers many questions about ice cream making in his book and here on his wonderful blog. He talks about, among other things, that lowering the fat content in an ice cream recipe can result in grainy, frozen hard ice creams because it’s the fat content (fat doesn’t freeze…if you don’t believe me throw some olive oil in the freezer and see what happens) that keeps it from freezing solid like an ice cube. Egg yolks, with their fat content, can make for creamier ice cream if you want to reduce the dairy fat, but then again, some of the best ice cream (French Style) is made with cream AND eggs. You can lower fat and add gelatin to compensate as well, but there is the additive conundrum again.
Having said all that…I can appreciate the desire to have a lower fat confection. My palate likes lower fat ice cream in general. I prefer lower fat content commercial ice creams (6-8g of fat per serving) over premium ice creams (12-18g). In the months leading up to my taping of a Chopped episode (will be airing December 2012) I practiced and memorized as many easy recipes as I could and  I devised this super quick “frozen yogurt” base as a way to make a frozen desert before any of my opponents could get to the ice cream machine first. There is no heating milk, separating eggs, making of custard. It’s low fat and because of the thick, rich consistency of the strained Greek yogurt,(and the low water content) it ends up with a creamy texture, despite the lack of fat. Here it is as I have it in my notes:
Quick Frozen Yogurt 

3 C strained yogurt or greek yogurt
¾ C confection sugar
1 t vanilla (or other flavoring, liquor, etc.) 

Mix all, making sure sugar is dissolved and well-distributed… put into ice cream maker. Freeze. Remember alcohol will prevent hard freezing…use with discretion.

I’m going to address your banana obsession last. But first, here is David Lebovitz’s Chocolate Sherbert which is decadent, delicious and low fat:

Chocolate Sherbet

About 3/4 quart (3/4l)

You can use either Dutch-process or natural cocoa powder, using a brand that you like. (I like Valrhona for the former, and Askinosie for the latter.) Since much of the flavor depends on the quality of the cocoa powder, use a top-quality brand that you like.

A little shot of coffee-flavored liqueur augments the taste and gives the sherbet a more scoop-able texture. Feel free to use another liqueur, or omit it.

2 cups (500ml) milk (whole, low, or non-fat)
1/2 cup (100g) sugar
pinch of salt
1/2 cup (50g) unsweetened cocoa powder
4 ounces (115g) bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
optional: 2 tablespoons coffee-flavored liqueur, such as Kahluà

1. In a medium-sized saucepan, warm half of the milk with the sugar, salt, and cocoa powder.

2. Bring to a full boil while whisking, then reduce the heat and simmer gently for 30 seconds.

3. Remove from heat and add the chocolate, the vanilla, and the coffee-flavored liqueur, if using. Stir in the other half of the milk.

4. Taste, and if the chocolate is a bit grainy, puree it in a blender to smooth it out.

5. Chill thoroughly, then freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

Note: As mentioned, above, this would likely work with non-dairy milk, but be sure to use one that can be boiled.

 

Now for the bananas:

This isn’t exactly ice cream, but it is a delicious frozen desert that IS healthy because it’s all fruit. No dairy. No fat. Just good old naked banana flavor. I adapted this from a blog I read regularly called Kitchn, and have used my browning bananas in this way many times for very satisfying results:

Banana “Ice Cream”

Freeze a banana until solid, then whip them up in a food processor, until it gets creamy and a little gooey, just like good custard ice cream. I was surprised at this bit of kitchen wizardry; I assumed that a blended banana would be flaky or icy. But no — it makes creamy, rich “ice cream”. If you are going to freeze the finished “ice cream” , you may want to add some fat (peanut butter, a hint of cream) to the mixture, or a little alcohol, then seal in an airtight container. The add-ins will help it stay soft and scoopable.

Best to use ripe bananas or the puree will have a “green” flavor. Experiment with adding flavorings, liquors, peanut butter, etc. Delicious!