Neatsy Keen-wa

Last night, for the first time ever, I cooked quinoa.

Campers, you may be aghast at this omission in my culinary repertoire, but there it is. I suppose I've always eschewed quinoa as excessively earthy-crunchy - possibly even a bit faddy - and not at all reflective of my esculentary style. It's not as though I was unaware of the pseudocereal's amazing health benefits and spectacular nutritional value: famously packed with protein, magnesium, and iron its amazing grain-like seeds are also gluten-free. Nor was I ignorant of quinoa's noble history and cultural significance in many pre-Columbian societies ('The miracle grain that built the Inca Empire!' is how The Nutritionist put it to me). Nonetheless, my irrational prejudice has kept me from cooking it until now - irrational prejudice plus the fact that I was pretty sure the youngest member of the family would hate it. Adamantly.

Having said all this, I am fairly sure I once ate quinoa. Straight off a seven-hour flight to see the Rels, I have a vague memory of SiL cooking up a batch for our annual Welcome-Back-to-Blighty dinner. She was on a bit of a diet tear at the time, as I recall, and prepared the grains with chicken and apricots. I regret to report the experience was not a terribly memorable one, jet-lagged as we were, and SiL never prepared quinoa again, having renounced the health kick and moved on to more popular dishes such as prawn Vindaloo and the Kid Squid's favorite, Chili Con Carnage.

So, quinoa slipped off my radar until a couple of weeks ago, when my favorite New Jersey nut shop started pushing, on its website, the organic red variety. Since a faint heart never won the gluten-free day, I broke down and bought a pound. When it arrived, I was forced to admit it was quite appealing, its rich mahogany color glowing from within the confines of its windowed blue pouch. The aroma was pleasantly nutty and it was fun plunging my fingers into the bag and feeling the smooth little grains wiggle about.

I soon discovered the seeds' deceitful nature, however, when several promptly made a bid for freedom, leaping off the counter and scampering about on the kitchen floor like miniature versions of the airsoft BBs I am forever finding underfoot. Too small to be seen easily or vacuumed efficiently, I believe there are some fugitives hiding in nooks and crannies still.

I decided to prepare the quinoa as simply as possible, reasoning that eating it in its natural form would be more likely to inspire future applications. I found basic handling instructions in the Gourmet cookbook (the newish green one, not the older yellow one). I decided to cook one cup's worth and set to work. First, as directed, I rinsed the quinoa in four changes of cold water to cleanse the grains of any residual saponins that might have escaped the nut shop's attention. This proved to be slightly more problematic than anticipated, as the little rascals re-asserted their independence by escaping through the holes in my medium-sized sieve and sticking to every surface with which they came into contact. I eventually dumped the remaining victims into three quarts of boiling salted water, where they bubbled away for ten minutes. I drained them, rinsed them again, wrapped them in cheesecloth, and steamed them for an additional twenty minutes. They emerged slightly swelled, dry, and fluffy, having retained their alluring red-brown color and taken on a far more contrite attitude.

The cooked quinoa grains: I steamed them in a
cheesecloth-lined colander with great success

I fluffed the quinoa with a fork, added a little nubbin of butter, salt, and pepper, and served the finished product as a side dish with thinly sliced beef and roasted broccoli. The Kid Squid dutifully ate a couple of bites, politely declined the rest, and got himself some couscous instead. Sir and I agreed that it took a little getting used to, but that it grew on one with the eating. The quinoa had a distinct and unexpected flavor, partly nutty and partly indescribable. The seeds, instead of being strictly crunchy, made an amusing little 'pop!' between the teeth.

In the end, Sir and I decided quinoa was worth a second try - probably when the Kid Squid is dining elsewhere. I will create a pilaf, I think, possibly with pine nuts and some dried fruit, which could be plumped with the grains during steaming.  I shall cook it in SiL's honor and call it Quinoa a la Bowness (all rights reserved).