Read A Good Food Day: Reboot Your Health with Food That Tastes Great Online

Authors: Marco Canora,Tammy Walker

A Good Food Day: Reboot Your Health with Food That Tastes Great (21 page)

Freekeh with Sugar Snap Peas, Spring Onions, and Fresh Herbs

FREEKEH WITH
SUGAR SNAP PEAS, SPRING ONIONS, AND FRESH HERBS
SERVES 4 TO 6
I’m totally enamored with the smoky flavor of freekeh. It’s a type of wheat harvested while it’s still young, then sun-dried in piles, set on fire to roast, and rubbed to remove the charred husks. Freekeh’s distinctive toasty, grassy notes pair best with bright flavors like the crunchy, fresh spring vegetables and fresh herbs in this salad. Though it takes longer to cook, I prefer the chewier texture of whole freekeh to the small pieces of cracked freekeh. Both varieties have double the fiber of quinoa, and more nutrients than other types of wheat. Freekeh is harder to find than other grains I use, but natural foods stores and online food retailers are safe bets.
▪
I’m always psyched to see spring onions show up at the farmers’ market in May. They look like scallions with a bigger white bulb. I love the slightly sharper, brighter flavor of spring onions and use them wherever possible for the short time they’re in season.
Boiling the sugar snap peas for 30 seconds takes the raw edge off while maintaining their crunch. It also brings out a more vibrant green color.
1 cup whole freekeh
Fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 cups sugar snap peas, stem ends and strings removed
4 small spring onions (or 2 bunches scallions), white and pale green parts only, thinly sliced (about ¾ cup)
5 radishes, diced
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil leaves
2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1
In a pot, combine the freekeh, 5 cups water, and a couple hefty pinches of salt and bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce the heat, cover, and simmer until the grains are tender but still have some bite, about 45 minutes. Drain the freekeh, letting it sit in the colander for a few minutes to remove all the liquid. (Otherwise the dressing won’t adhere to the grains.) Transfer the freekeh to a large bowl and set aside to cool.
2
Bring a pot of water to a boil. Drop in the sugar snap peas and boil until they’re bright green, about 30 seconds. Strain the peas into a colander and run cold water over them. Drain the peas until they are completely dry, then cut crosswise into ¼-inch pieces.
3
Add the chopped peas, onions, radishes, basil, mint, vinegar, and olive oil to the bowl of freekeh. Toss to combine and season to taste with salt and pepper.
BASIC FARRO
MAKES 5 CUPS
I may spend quality time with quinoa, sweet brown rice, and the other grains I’ve come to love in recent years, but farro will be in regular rotation in my kitchen forever. It’s an integral wheat grain in Italian cooking, and for as long as I can remember I’ve loved its earthy, nutty, slightly sweet flavor. When it’s cooked well, farro is tender and chewy with a bit of firmness at its center. Packing more protein and fiber than brown rice, farro makes a filling salad and adds texture and heartiness to
soups
. You can find it in most gourmet groceries, Italian specialty shops, and natural foods stores.
▪
Farro is not gluten-free, but it has a low gluten content that people with a mild sensitivity to wheat may be able to tolerate.
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 small yellow onion, quartered through the core
1 small carrot, quartered lengthwise
1 small celery stalk, halved lengthwise and crosswise
Fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 cups farro
1
In a large pot, heat the olive oil over medium-low heat. Add the onion, carrot, celery, and salt and pepper to taste. Stir the vegetables to thoroughly coat them with the oil. Cover, reduce the heat to low, and cook until the vegetables soften, about 10 minutes.
2
Add the farro and stir to coat it with the oil and vegetables. Add enough water to cover the farro by about ½ inch. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to low and simmer until the farro is tender, about 20 minutes. If the pot looks dry, add a couple tablespoons of water. Remove and discard the vegetables. Serve the farro warm, or let it cool completely before storing in the refrigerator for up to 4 days.
CRUNCHY SPRING
FARRO
SALAD
SERVES 4 TO 6
With a premade batch of farro at the ready, this simultaneously light and substantial salad is ready in less than 10 minutes. It is exactly the way I enjoyed farro growing up—tossed with crunchy vegetables from the garden, a fresh herb, and good-quality olive oil and vinegar. Don’t let its simplicity fool you—there’s a great contrast of bright and earthy, cool and peppery flavors working together. This is great alongside
Herb-Roasted Spatchcock Chicken
.
▪
In colder months, trade the summer vegetables and basil for diced and roasted winter squash and thyme, and dress it with
Honey-Cider Vinaigrette
.
4 cups cooked, room temperature
farro
½ pint cherry tomatoes, halved
½ cup thinly sliced radishes
½ cucumber, quartered lengthwise and thinly sliced crosswise
1 bunch scallions, white and pale green parts only, thinly sliced
¼ cup chopped fresh basil
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
Fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
In a large bowl, combine the farro, tomatoes, radishes, cucumber, scallions, and basil and toss with the vinegar and olive oil. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Mushroom, Barley, and Kale Soup

MUSHROOM,
BARLEY, AND KALE SOUP
SERVES 6 TO 8
This meat-free umami-bomb soup is immensely satisfying and full-flavored. The liquid used to rehydrate dried shiitake and porcini mushrooms creates a rich broth that’s boosted by earthy, fresh cremini mushrooms and the savory depth of tomato paste and anchovies (these two melt away into the background of the soup, so you won’t be able to identify them). The heady layers of umami are grounded by the nuttiness and chewy, pastalike texture of barley. Its high fiber content makes soups especially filling. It takes time to develop the deep flavors here, so this isn’t a fast one. Make it over the weekend, let it cool, and then refrigerate or freeze it for quick meals during the week.
▪
Most grains have fiber only in their outer bran layer, but the fiber in barley is distributed throughout the whole kernel. So, even though the bran layer is removed from pearl barley, it still has significant amounts of fiber. You could use hulled barley here, the type that still has the bran layer, but it takes at least an hour longer to cook than pearl barley.
I’m partial to Tuscan kale, but any type of kale works well.
½ ounce dried porcini mushrooms
½ ounce dried shiitake mushrooms
¾ cup pearl barley
2 bay leaves
3 sprigs of fresh thyme tied with kitchen string, plus 1 tablespoon chopped thyme leaves
½ medium yellow onion, quartered through the core
Fine sea salt
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon anchovy paste (or whole anchovies chopped and mashed into a paste)
1 large carrot, cut into medium dice (about 1 cup)
1 large yellow onion, diced (about 1 cup)
4 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
1½ tablespoons tomato paste
10 ounces fresh cremini mushrooms, halved lengthwise and sliced crosswise (about 3 cups)
1 bunch kale, stems and center ribs removed, leaves chopped into bite-size pieces
Freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, for serving
Freshly cracked black pepper
1
In a large bowl, combine the dried porcini and shiitake mushrooms with 4 cups very hot water and let soak for 10 minutes. Squeeze the mushrooms over the bowl to release excess water, and reserve the soaking liquid. Roughly chop the porcinis and slice the shiitakes.
2
In a soup pot, combine the barley, reserved mushroom liquid, 6 cups water, the bay leaves, thyme bundle, onion, and 2 large pinches of salt. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer, and cook until the barley is tender but not mushy, about 20 minutes. Discard the onion quarters, thyme bundle, and bay leaves.
3
In another large soup pot, combine the olive oil, anchovy paste, carrot, onion, garlic, and a pinch of salt. Cook over high heat for 2 minutes, stirring frequently. Reduce the heat to medium, then cover, and cook the vegetables for 10 minutes, stirring once halfway through. Add the chopped thyme, tomato paste, porcinis, shiitakes, and cremini mushrooms. Stir well to combine. Cover and cook for 10 minutes, stirring once halfway through. Add the kale and another pinch of salt, stirring to coat the kale with the warm vegetables. Cover and cook for another 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
4
Add the barley and its cooking liquid to the soup pot, along with 3 cups water. Bring the soup to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer, partially cover, and cook for 30 minutes. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Serve hot with Parmesan and cracked black pepper.
UMAMI
To radically enhance the flavor of your cooking without piling on salt, sugar, fat, or artificial crap, you’ve got to get into umami-rich foods.
Umami
is the Japanese word for “pleasant, savory taste” and is widely recognized as the fifth taste sense, joining sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. Umami adds the deep, rich, intensely savory flavor to a lot of foods you find addictively satisfying—if you’ve ever crumbled blue cheese over a beet salad, slurped homemade chicken soup, or simmered beans with a ham hock, you’ve experienced the almost indescribable deliciousness of umami. The source of its flavor-enhancing magic is an amino acid called glutamate. It exists in abundance in many foods you’re already familiar with, including meat, aged cheeses, tomatoes, mushrooms, nuts, shellfish, and a few that may not be regulars in your kitchen, like miso, nori, kelp, and fish sauce.
Umami-rich ingredients are the secret to adding depth and deeply satisfying, robust flavor to meatless dishes. By packing vegetarian dishes with the powerhouse umami-rich flavors of dried and fresh mushrooms, Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, and tomato paste, I skip the meat without sacrificing flavor. Certain cooking techniques can further amp up the flavor of umami foods: Toasting nuts and seeds, pan-roasting mushrooms, curing fish, pickling vegetables, and braising and slow-cooking all bring out a dish’s inner umami, as does browning and caramelization on a well-cooked piece of meat (
see here
for a deeper dive into this).

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