QUINOA
Quinoa
ticks so many boxes – tasty, quick cooking, packed with nutrition,
gluten free, versatile and colourful it features in soups, salads,
sides, mains, desserts and snacks. It is now grown around the world.
What a tasty success story. While it may currently be the trendiest
grain on the block, it’s not so very long ago that none of us outside
the Altiplano had heard of it. But it has always been the Americas other
major grain. But, unlike corn (maize), the rest of the world forgot
about it for several hundred years. How come the comeback? Three
enthusiastic Americans—Stephen Gorad, Don McKinley and David Cusack of
the Quinoa Corporation (now Ancient Harvest brand) put quinoa on our plates.
The recipe shown in the photograph is Chrissy Freer’s Spice roasted cauliflower, quinoa and petipa pilaf courtesy Australian Healthy Food Guide.
To rinse or not to rinse?
Like
many seeds, quinoa arms itself with bitter-tasting compounds in its
outer skin to deter the unwelcome attention from insects and birds. In
this case it’s saponins. Most quinoa has been treated in some way to
remove the saponins before being packaged for sale, but it’s probably a
good idea to pop the grains in a sieve and run them under cold water
first. Saponins are phytochemicals found in very small amounts in many
plants including veggies (peas, soybeans) and herbs. They tend to pass
straight through us as they are poorly absorbed by our bodies. Heating
destroys them. Naming rights comes from the soapwort plant (Saponaria
officinalis)—its root was used as soap (Latin sapo “soap”) as they have a
natural foaming tendency. With natural cleaning products making a
comeback, there’s growing interest in using saponins for making natural
detergents.
Source: The Good Carbs Cookbook
