Paper Chef #14: Throwing the “baby” in with the quinoa

Paper Chef is a weekend food-blogging event, the brainchild of Owen at Tomatilla! On the first Friday of each month, a list of four ingredients is posted; bloggers post their recipes using said ingredients on the following Monday. For Paper Chef #14, hosted by the Washington food-blogging duo at Belly-Timber, the ingredients were: quinoa, yog(h)urt, cashews and “baby” food (either food for babies or something with baby in the name or…)

Update: Mrs. D and Chopper Dave at Belly-Timber have posted a beautiful Paper Chef round-up, including photos and descriptions of all twenty-three entries!

Until Saturday, I had never cooked quinoa. As far as I know, I had never eaten quinoa. Before mixing quinoa with anything else, I wanted to know what it was all on its own, so I cooked 1 cup of raw quinoa as plainly as possible:

Rinse the quinoa in several changes of water, rubbing the grains together, until the water stays clear. Cook quinoa in boiling water 10 minutes. Drain in a large sieve and rinse under cold running water. Set sieve of quinoa over a pot with an inch or two of boiling water (sieve should not touch water); cover with a tea towel and the pot lid. Steam until quinoa is fluffy and dry, 10 to 12 minutes.

The cup of tiny seeds quadrupled in size; I had four cups of something with a more interesting texture (light and soft, with a bit of chewiness) than flavor (extremely mild, vaguely nutty, dare I say bland?). The ideas that I’d had for the other three required ingredients - roasted baby squash and onions, a coriander-lime-yogurt sauce, cashews tossed with currants in the quinoa - seemed too heavy. I feared overpowering the light texture and taste of the quinoa, which I wanted instead to emphasize.

After a couple of false starts, I came up with a recipe that I like: Quinoa in Blueberry-Yog(h)urt Vinaigrette with Cashews and Three “Babies” (Spinach, Citrus and Pomegranates).

Here’s what you’ll need for two servings:

• Quinoa, cooked, 2 cups
• Yogurt, Greek, 1/2 cup (I like Fage, and used 2% for this)
• Blueberry vinegar, 1/4 cup (available from Canter-Berry Farms’ web site, or at Pike Place Market)
• Dijon mustard, 1 1/2 tsp.
• Red onion, finely chopped, 3 Tbsp.
• Black pepper, freshly ground, to taste
• Cashews, roasted, 1/3 cup
• Satsumas or clementines, 2, sectioned (a.k.a. “baby” citrus)
• Pomegranate seeds, 1/3 cup (a.k.a. “baby” pomegranates)
• Baby spinach, 2 cups

Whisk together the yogurt, blueberry vinegar, mustard and 2 Tbsp of the red onion. Coarsely chop 1/4 of the satsuma sections; add fruit and juice to dressing. Grind in black pepper to taste. Combine dressing with cooked quinoa; chill for a couple of hours so that flavors blend and permeate the quinoa.

Arrange baby spinach on 2 plates. Stir half of cashews and half of pomegranate seeds into quinoa. Mound half of quinoa mixture in center of each plate (or, for nice architectural lines, pack into ramekins and turn out onto spinach). Arrange satsuma sections around quinoa; sprinkle with remaining cashews, pomegranate seeds and red onion.

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