Annapurna Pilaf

Several weeks ago I bemoaned, at great length, the fact that I have nowhere convenient for work where I can eat a gluten-free lunch. I have since reconciled myself to this sad situation and am now the most efficient brown-bagger that has ever been seen west of the Delaware. With some well-planned shopping and cooking at the weekends plus judicial use of leftovers, I can set myself up for a happy week of healthy gluten-free mid-day meals that render me feeling quite virtuous.

Prominent among these dishes is quinoa, with which I had such fun wrestling back in my early days of gluten freedom. I have become quite skillful at subduing these cheeky little seeds and discovered that an hour's time investment with them early in the week sets me up with admirable microwave fare for days to follow.

My favorite quinoa invention so far is a dried fruit and cauliflower pilaf admired by everybody but The Kid Squid, who refuses to embrace this miraculous grain the way today's youth should. This is too bad, because it is a delicious accompaniment to pork and fowl as well as excellent on its own. You can eat it at room temperature, but I like the way heat plumps up the dried fruit and makes it succulent. One cup of uncooked quinoa provides four to five meals' worth, as lunch or a side.

This is how I make Quinoa for Sherpas.

I measure out one cup of organic red quinoa from my favorite New Jersey nut shop and cook it the way I described back in October - a method that I gleaned from the green Gourmet cookbook and have been unable to improve. I rinse the seeds in four changes of cold water (die, saponins, die!), pick out all the leaves and grasses that float to the top of the bath, then boil the grains for 10 minutes in plenty of salted water. I rinse them again, then steam them in a cheesecloth-lined colander for 20 minutes.

While this is happening, I finely chop one bigg-ish sweet onion and sweat it with a blob of butter until softness and translucency are achieved. At then end of cooking, I add cumin, turmeric, ginger and cayenne to taste and let it heat for a bit. Then I stir in some cooked cauliflower (florets chopped pretty small, but still big enough to be pretty); a handful of chopped apricots; half a handful of chopped prunes; and - the piece de resistance - as many organic Hunza golden raisins as I can afford.

Have you ever eaten a Hunza golden raisin? If not, I urge you to go and buy some without delay. They are the most amazing things in the world: grown high up in the Himalayas, if you can believe it, where they are watered with the sorts of life-giving mountainous glacial springs that can only be found at 8,000 feet above sea level. I have no idea how these little gems find their way into the organic section of my local supermarket and I don't care - not about the outrageous cost and not about the horrifying carbon footprint they produce. They are the most miraculous raisins you will ever see or taste: pale green with yellow accents, sweet, complex, and chewy.

Into the pilaf they go! When everything has been stirred around for a bit and heated up and become acquainted, I add the quinoa. I mix it all up and - hey presto - enough pilaf to power Tenzing Norgay to the top of Chomolungma.

Or course, he didn't have a microwave. Luckily, I do.

Quinoa for Sherpas: a Hunza golden raisin may be
clearly seen at nine o'clock