Cooking quinoa and Ottolenghi

I have been watching with delight the SBS cooking series by London based Israeli chef Yotam Ottolenghi. His classic home-style dishes, coupled with this unending enthusiasm for cuisine from his home region and his brillliant style with food has re-ignited my interest in Middle Eastern food.

The food of this region is steeped in history and culture, locality and availability, tradition and ceremony. The culture is of the table, people regularly plan to eat together and share food, even in the most informal of circumstances. It is a beautiful and forgotten part of our life, the importance of the table and the need to anchor the day (especially for a family) by sitting to eat together. It seems that for so many people today 'dinnertime' is so easily pushed aside to make way for other activities, to the detriment of everyone, I think.



In my house we consciously have breakfast and dinner together, everyone sitting, for even the briefest moments (breakfast can be a bit muddled, but we all sit). My eldest son has even taken to luxuriating over his toast and tea, lounging at the table, not in any hurry to dash and rush. This is his style, and as frustrating as it is sometimes, I like that we have the space to accommodate his nature in this important daily ritual meal. He is eating breakfast, and that is half the challenge.

The other inspiration I have taken from Ottolenghi is his way with whole ingredients. On my wholefood journey I have investigated a dirth of wholefood cookbooks and while the more recent ones are divine and produced with colour and care, there are many out there with the barest 'wholesome and wholemeal' recipes, all focused on the benefits of the ingredients and not their flavour or presentation. You have to work hard to get these dishes on the table, thinking outside the recipe to get your lentils, beans and rice palatable and presentable.

Ottolenghi, has achieved this without any notion of the word 'wholefood'. He uses the everyday ingredients of his region- lentils, beans, rice, onions, oil, fresh, fresh herbs and spices, yoghurt and labne, leaves and fruits- to create some of the simplest dishes I have seen. He splashes pomegranates and their molasses around without a thought for their 'superfood' status, his vegetables are sauteed with tumeric and chilli, cumin and coriander without mentioning their anti-inflammatory and cleansing properties. He reminds me that all real, fresh food is good to eat, that flavour is paramount, that we don't have to become restricted and paralysed by the limitations of certain diets, it's easy, easy, easy to eat well.

But first we have to know how to use the ingredients.
I have been working with quinoa a lot. This non-gluten grain has a few tricks, it's great and easy to cook with and even tricky eaters will succumb to it's nutty, earthy flavour, once you learn to use it.


Firstly, always rinse it well. Quinoa has it's own built in pesticide that can act as a nutrient blocker and make quinoa undigestable for some people. Fill a big bowl with water, measure in your quinoa and swish and swirl it around. It feels lovely. Then tip it into a fine strainer, change the water and do it again. Now your quinoa is ready to go.

The most basic quinoa cooking method is the same as the absorbtion method for basmati rice-
1 cup quinoa
1.5 cups water
pinch salt

Put quinoa, water and salt into a pot over medium heat. Once the water comes to the boil, put on a secure lid, turn the heat to the lowest possible setting (or switch to the lowest burner on your stove) and leave to cook for 10-12 minutes. Do not peek or stir it, just trust. At 10 mins, lift off the lid, and with the back of a spoon, push some of the quinoa from the edge of the pan to see if any liquid or moisture remains. But trust me, there probably won't be, this is just the right habit to cultivate for when you are cooking greater amounts of quinoa. If there is moisture, leave it cooking for the further two minutes, lid on, heat low, until that liquid is absorbed. Then remove the pan from the heat, lid still on, contents untouched, and wait 10 minutes more. Now, after the ten minutes are up, you can fluff your quinoa with a fork and serve it, or tip it into a bowl ready to continue with your recipe (quinoa cakes, quinoa salad, whatever you are doing). You have cooked quinoa!

I slowly, slowly started introducing my family to quinoa by sneaking white quinoa into plain basmati and cooking it together, using the exact method as above. They cook at this same time and the quinoa kind of disappears, especially if serving it under a juicy stew or curry or with our family favourite, chicken on a stick with peanut butter sauce (aka chicken sate). Gradually I got the ratio up to half/half without anyone taking exception to the rice.

The picture above is a super simple salad- a collection of easy ingredients-
carrots roasted in cumin,
frozen broad beans, lightly blanched,
wilted spinach,
toasted sesame seeds
chives cut into batons,
lemon and olive oil dressing,
salt and pepper.

Yotam Ottolenghi has several cookbooks, all worth looking for, but for net-heads, he writes for the Guardian, so there is a whole cache of ready to use inspiration, just waiting for us to stop worrying about what our food is going to do for us, and get cooking!