Hi, everyone! Mia here, jumping in for Tanya today. Delighted to be with you.
Not that anyone asked, but my very favorite grain will always be rice. Specifically the Calrose rice that my trusty Zojirushi rice cooker has prepared for me, hot and plush and ready to be draped with tofu rendang or soy-simmered mushroom and egg.
But I also enjoy branching out; expanding my grain brain, as it were. White rice is many things, but it’s not nutty, like farro or buckwheat. It’s not bouncy-chewy, like wild rice or barley. And it doesn’t pack a good amount of protein, as quinoa does.
I wrote about Ali Slagle’s quinoa salad for the New York Times Cooking newsletter back in January — you subscribe to that newsletter, yes? — and my craving still stands. I love how assertively seasoned and versatile this dish is. It’s sort of a cross between tabbouleh and Greek salad, mixing quinoa with cucumbers, red bell pepper, olives, parsley and a confidently garlicky dressing. But, as Ali notes, you can add or swap in all sorts of vegetables, cheeses and herbs, and the reader comments are full of great suggestions.
Quinoa Salad
Before we continue, here’s Ali’s recipe for cooking pretty much any type of grain. I’ll also pass along her one-pot greens, beans and grains, which is exactly what you think it is: A mix-and-match formula for making fluffy grains, just-cooked greens and tender beans, with only one pan to clean.
For farro, I’ve been eyeing this dish with blistered tomatoes, pesto and spinach, a five-star recipe from Yasmin Fahr. I also would love several big scoops of Melissa Clark’s lemony farro pasta salad with goat cheese and mint, which features sweet dried apricots to pop against the spicy lemon dressing. A heads-up to meal-preppers (and anyone who’s agreed to bring a pasta salad to a Memorial Day cookout): This recipe makes a lot of servings.
I know that roasted vegetable season is in the rearview mirror for many, but the evenings are still cool enough to turn on the oven, at least where I live. Carrots are cheap and plentiful lately, so I’m going to share this warm roasted carrot and barley salad recipe. The recipe is by vegetarian cooking queen Hetty Lui McKinnon, so you know it’s solid.
And, because real soup people know that soup has no season, here’s Yasmin’s miso-mushroom barley soup, a hearty vegan dish that’s easy to pull together and accommodates lots of substitutions. You could try a different mushroom for the creminis, bok choy for the spinach or brown rice for the barley.
Lastly, while I usually cook my beloved rice without any frills, I can be swayed, especially in the service of a larger dinner. I might do a big pot of buttery rice pilaf to serve with a mushroom and potato paprikash; turmeric-stained yellow rice to pair with walnut picadillo; floral coconut rice to be a bed for butter paneer.
Would plain ol’ white rice be great with any of those mains? Absolutely. But this is The Veggie; we don’t mind a little grain-gilding here.
Farro With Blistered Tomatoes, Pesto and Spinach
Warm Roasted Carrot and Barley Salad
Miso-Mushroom Barley Soup
One More Thing!
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention this incredible 25-year retrospective of New York City dining, an interactive timeline brought to you by the brilliant minds behind the Where to Eat newsletter. If you ate in restaurants in New York in the last quarter-century, you’ll certainly recognize some familiar places, faces and trends on this list. My “Ohhh, I remember that!” moment is the 2005 emergence of Xi’an Famous Foods and their instantly lovable (and vegan) liang pi “cold-skin noodles.” They taught me that “Not Spicy = Not As Good,” and I still subscribe to that credo.
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