After reading my so far favourite book about food history, Cuisine and Culture: A History of Food and People by Linda Civitello, I became interested in New World crops. Quinoa was one of them, but the price for even a small package was so high that I always held myself from buying it with a quote “stop buying avocado on a toast if you want to afford the house “. Last visit to Tesco brought me a surprise, 250 package of quinoa for the price that I could name “still overpriced, but I can try it”. What cook from quinoa on May in Slovakia when famous May bryndza cheese is available in all stores? I have an obvious answer: just combine these 2 products in 1 dish. The result is great 🙂
Ingredients for 2 portions
100 g of quinoa
1 middle sized onion
200 g of green beans (I used frozen)
100 g of bryndza (substitution: any kind of soft cheese)
salt, pepper, olive oil
Directions
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- There are many opinions if quinoa has to be rinsed before cooking, I prefer to wash it, just because it makes me feel comfortable (I know, it’s not a very logical answer, but my OCD doesn’t know what is logic). So cook quinoa in 300ml of salted water for 10 min and live for more 5 minutes under the lid. Google research “how to cook quinoa” showed different time of cooking and different proportions of quinoa and water, but I used the recipe written on the package and it worked.
- While quinoa is cooking, sauté onion cut to thin stripes with olive oil on a big pan until it becomes soft, then add green beans. Cook for 10 minutes on medium heat, stirring from time to time so that onion didn’t burn.
- Add quinoa to the pan, add pepper, stir properly and cook for 5 minutes on low heat.
- Put salad into a bowl and mix with half of bryndza.
- Make salad to cool a little bit and serve with crushed brynzda on the top.
It’s great to combine 2 staple products of 2 different cultures in one recipe and get so tasty result.
