Last Thanksgiving, Maureen asked me if there was a side dish I’d like to bring, and, feeling rather adventurous, I volunteered to bring quinoa (pronounced keen-wah). I had never had quinoa, but I’d seen it described as having a nutty flavor. In my mind, quinoa would be about the same size as barley, and would have a flavor halfway between an oat and a pecan. Therefore it seemed like a good base for a Thanksgiving side dish.
Turns out, quinoa is nothing like that. It is roughly the size of couscous, and has an aftertaste a lot like alfalfa sprouts. This was not at all what I wanted to bring to Thanksgiving dinner. Fortunately, Maureen had no objection to me changing at the last minute and bringing something else (a rice dish).
So for weeks and weeks I’ve had an open package of quinoa in my pantry. I *want* to like the quinoa. It’s very healthy. It’s a whole grain, and very high in protein. So today I decided I would try to make some for breakfast.
I seasoned the quinoa liberally with cinnamon and nutmeg and ginger, and sweetened it with honey. Then, just for good measure, I doused the entire thing with blueberry sauce (which I’d originally made to go over vanilla ice cream, but I had some left over):
The verdict? Well…meh. It tasted okay. But in less time than it took me to make this, I could have done the same thing with oatmeal, and it would have been much tastier. (And, to add insult to injury, since both the quinoa and the blueberries were dark colors, it didn’t even photograph very well!)
My first experience with quinoa was making a cake with crystallized ginger and golden raisins… I thought it turned out very well, for a “healthy” dessert, and I’d make it again!
http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2008/01/cook-the-book-quinoa-cake-with-crystallized-ginger-recipe.html
Hmmm…I still have a fair bit of quinoa left, so maybe I’ll try it as cake!
I think maple syrup is good in quinoa.
I probably would have tried maple syrup, except that I wanted to use up the blueberry sauce.
Oh man, I just bought some. Well, it was cheap.
Wheatberries, by the way, are about the size of barley and have a wheaty-nutty taste. But take over an hour to cook.
Next time I get the urge to try a fancy new grain, I’ll definitely go with the wheatberries.
Man, I love quinoa!! I have not however tried the red quinoa that it looks like you are using here. We tend to use it like rice under stir-fry dishes.
Yeah, I think savory might be a better match for the quinoa than sweet.
Quinoa: it’s not for breakfast.
We’ve eaten quinoa regularly for years, because it’s grainlike and not wheat. For me, the big trick (and the big pain in the neck) is that you have to rinse the quinoa thoroughly several times before cooking it to remove the residual saponins which give it that bitter taste. In theory, the quinoa has already been rinsed before you buy it. In practice, well, I suppose the blueberries and syrup might take care of it. The best part of eating quinoa is its humorous slightly squishy texture, since it doesn’t have much flavor of its own.
Red quinoa, which is only available in very expensive small boxes from Ancient Harvest, doesn’t require rinsing, has a great nutty flavor, and is worth trying even if you’re not allergc to wheat.
Oh, wait. You were working with red quinoa. Well, tastes differ. If you try it again, try it with savory stuff rather than sweet.
Yup, this is the red quinoa, and since I didn’t know any better, I rinsed it pretty thoroughly anyway. I think you’re right though — savory might work better than sweet.
I use it in multigrain bread recipes. It just a nutty taste and good texture plus that hit of protein. And I really like it as hot cereal but I treat it like pinhead oats. I soak it overnight and just turn the pot on in the morning. The first photograph is lovely–it makes the cereal look like tiny sea creatures hatching.
Anon
It does look a little like tiny sea creatures :) Multigrain bread is a bit beyond me, but I wonder if I’d like quinoa mixed half and half with oatmeal…
You are adventurous–quinoa is a pain in the behind to cook.
I’ve been putting it in things that would normally take brown rice. Brown rice doesn’t have much of a flavor, so the quinoa doesn’t hurt the dish too badly. I’ve also used it as a replacement for bulgar, which is also a good grain but has less protien.
I read somewhere that quinoa has a better flavor if you 1) soak it for a 1/2 hour, and 2) rinse it to get rid of the little rings that come off when it soaks long enough.
So maybe soaking is the answer. I’ll add that to my list of things to try when I use up the rest of what I bought. Thanks!
We just put our quinoa into the rice cooker, making it significantly less of a pain in the behind!
The white quinoa tastes more like couscous. I usually use it in place of couscous.
I’ll have to try the white sometime, and see if there’s a big difference between the white and the red.
Hmm…maybe I just didn’t rinse it enough. Toasting it seems like a good idea too.