Grapes quinoa salad with pine nuts

Version française disponible ici !

Today I’ve decided to participate to the “Day of the book” proposed by Aude last month. The principal is simple: we dust take a cookery book from our bookcase and we find the motivation to make one of the recipes! Then, we can write an article to share our experience, every first Saturday of the month :) – but we don’t have to do it each month!

Even if I don’t have 150 cookery books at home as Aude do (I’ve just counted: 13 books … I’m so a newbie :p), I’m not more diligent than her on it. So, I find it’s a really good idea. This time for example, it makes me prepare a dish I would never have the idea to make. And that I probably wouldn’t have searched on Internet neither …

 

The recipe comes from a book named “Vegetarian cuisine”, from Hachette Pratique edition (in French – “Bon App’”collection, n°5). The thing I really like in this easy recipe collection: a season sorting. So today will be an autumn dish: Grapes quinoa salad with pine nuts. Pine nuts were supposed to be flaked almonds, but I’m not fond of it – especially in a salad – so I did without… I hope you won’t hold a grudge against me :)

For 2 people:

• 75g quinoa
• ½ black white wine grapes
• 25g flaked almonds 15g pine nuts
• ½ bunch of chives
• 1 organic vegetable stock cube (I finally only used ½ of it)
• ½ tsp honey agave syrup
• 1 tbs cider vinegar
• 3 tbs vegetable oil (2 of nut oil + 1 of rapeseed oil for me)
• Salt, pepper

1. Cook the quinoa into two times its volume in boiling water with the (1/2) vegetable stock cube, covered, on a low heat, for 10 minutes. Let rest for 5 minutes, still covered, for making swell the seeds. it smells so good! A light nut smell is coming from quinoa don’t you think? Let cool down then.
2. Cut chives in small pieces.
3. Clean, cut in half and seed grapes.
4. Prepare the vinaigrette by mixing oil, vinegar, agave syrup (or honey), salt and pepper together.
5. When the quinoa is well cooled down, mix together all the ingredients prepared until now.
6. Just before serving it, brown pine nuts in a dry pan, sprinkle them on the salad and eat while it’s still cold/warm!

TIPS AND TRICKS

I never cook quinoa (so I never eat some – which is a big mistake because this pseudo-cereal is great in a nutritional point of view, we’ll talk more about it later :)! And the book says nothing about the cookng so if you’re used to prepare it, don’t change your habits!

Anyway, I was really glad of the texture of those small seeds that look like tiny-jellyfishes if we look closer^^, right? No? With a small dot in the middle and the translucent outlines, look well. No? Ok I don’t insist :D

SERVING SUGGESTIONS

Well, I simply would say that I was amazed! I don’t like no-cooked fresh herbs – their taste is always too strong for me (yes, my life is so sad…), but I think chive is the less worst among all of them. So I told myself: “Come on, let’s try!”.

So I prepared my lemon slice (read ‘my half lemon’) that usually accompanies a salad dish for me. But I still taste first – of course! And at this moment: “Oh my god, that is so good!”. Really no need to add anything: the slightly sweet-salty tastes go very well together, textures are varied, colors are harmonious, everything is here!

Anyway, I was really surprised / impressed. So I ate the all of it just by myself! More that you can see in the picture 8-)

To conclude: to make it again, definitely!

Thank you a lot Aude for this nice idea, I will try to participate as much as I can to the “Day of the book”. 

Thank you Emmanuelle for having offered me this book :D And thank all of you for being here and finding time to read my jellyfish digressions many photo-stories ^^.

Nice week everybody and see you soon :)

Rose.