Recipe – delicious Cypriot Grain Salad
Recipe – delicious Cypriot Grain Salad
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I originally got this recipe from Terri, who came over as part of a private tour in 2012. To illustrate how good this salad is, Terri told me about the first time she and her husband had it.
Terri and her husband had friends over for dinner and one of her friends brought this amazing grain salad. After dinner her husband quickly took the dishes off the table and raced them to the kitchen. Thinking this was unusually efficient behaviour, Terri followed her husband into the kitchen to find him squirrelling the left over grain salad into a tupperware container to put the fridge. “What are you doing?” Terri asked
“We can’t give this back,” Terri’s husband said “it’s too good!”
He was right of course. This grain salad is absolutely delicious. Full of protein and low GI carbs, it makes a great accompaniment to other lighter salads for lunch. Maybe with some cooked chook on the side. Try it yourself and you’ll probably win the annual Christmas salad making competition.
Ingredients
1 bunch coriander, chopped
1/2 bunch parsley, chopped
1/2 red onion, finely diced
1 1/2 cup dried grains (freekah, cracked wheat, quinoa or brown rice)
1/2 cup dried Puy (French) lentils
2 Tbs pumpkin seeds (pepitas)
2 Tbs slivered almonds
2 Tbs pine nuts
2 Tbs baby capers
1/2 cup currants
Juice of 1 lemon
3 Tbs extra virgin olive
Sea salt to taste
Dressing
1 cup natural Greek yoghurt
1 tsp cumin seeds, toasted and ground
1 Tbs honey
Method
Cook grains and lentils separately until just cooked. Allow to cool.
Toast seeds and nuts in a pan over a low-med heat, stirring until golden brown (the pepitas will pop)
Mix the yoghurt, oil and honey until combined (this just helps distribute the honey through the dressing better – I find that if I just spoon it on, I get chunks of honey in my salad).
Put all ingredients into a medium bowl. Mix well and season to taste.
Notes:
1. For the grains I usually use a mix of brown rice and quinoa. I’ve only used freekah a couple of times but it is very delicious, with a sort of smokey flavour, and now I think I might be addicted! I found it in the bulk bins at Kakulas Sisters.
2. If you can’t be bothered with one more pot, you can buy pre-cooked brown rice. Just squeeze the packet to separate the grains, open it and dump it in.
3. Instead of buying little bits of all those seeds and nuts I sometimes buy the packet of mixed seeds with pine nuts that you can find in supermarkets. Those packets don’t have almonds in them though, and almonds are a good addition.
4. Don’t worry too much about measuring all your ingredients – just go with the flow and stop when it tastes good.
