20111030

herby quinoa with mango and eggplant.

hello, nenes! i just got back from manila, i might be able to eke a post outta that trip for you later this week. i just wanted to drop in, say hello (helloooo!) and give you a recipe that is waymazing, oh, you gotta try it. 

i am perpetually trying to eat healthier foods, so i've been stuffin' myself with lovely leafy greens and wholesome grains. however, one grain i'm sloowwwwwly coming around to is quinoa, which wiki tells me is a pseudocereal rather than a real cereal. which probably explains why i only pseudo-like it as opposed to really like it. it is, says wiki and maybe more credible sources, related to beets, spinach, and tumbleweeds. ah. so you say. hm. 

red quinoa

anyway, people (and maybe even wiki) say it's good for  you, so i've been trying to eat it. it's just a little too seedy for me to treat it like a grain, so i can only eat so much of it. i recently started reading heidi swanson's blog again, and in her reinvention of pasta salad, she drastically reduces the amount of pasta in the salad, and makes the vegetables the star. i thought perhaps i would take this approach with quinoa; instead of making it the main ingredient, i'd delegate it to the background for now, at least until i get a better grasp of this tumbleweed relative. 

quinoa, mango, and eggplant salad

one of my favourite recipes is from yotam ottolenghi's cookbook "plenty", which is exclusively vegetarian, but filled with recipes that are adaptable to any lifestyle or almost any environment. my guambat readers know how...quirky and erratic produce shopping can be here, so it's nice to know that there are tasty recipes out there that can accommodate our lack of variety that sometimes plagues us. the recipe i turn to often is one for soba noodles, aubergine (eggplant), and mango, which sounds funky--and it is! in an entirely good way--but gets its flavours from familiar southeast asian cuisines. you could wrap this up in lettuce or rice paper wrappers and be a happy island camper. i followed the recipe, with the only substitution being three cups of cooked red quinoa for the buckwheat soba noodles, to great success. the quinoa soaked up the vinegary dressing, and the slightly annoying texture was lost amongst all the crunchy herbiness and soft, fleshy aubergine and mango. good stuff, this. might even be good for you.

get the original recipe here! substitute with red quinoa, white quinoa or noodle of choice, should you desire.

quinoa, mango, and eggplant salad





9 comments:

Lovely salad Santos! The Missus loves quinoa and it's starting to easier to get the red variety around here recently.

hey kirk! i've been salivating over all the gret things you've been making at your house recently, especially the eggs and mushroom ragout. gotta get on that!!

i like the red quinoa slightly more than the regular one. i think any difference is all in my head though.

The salad is indeed lovely. Your post has me curious about where your produce comes from. I live in Hawaii and the majority of our produce comes from the US mainland, though I think some of it may originate in Mexico. Anyway, I was just wondering.

Thanks,
Winnie

hi winnie, our produce comes from everywhere--from the us, south america, latin america, but also japan, korea, new zealand, and occasionally the philippines. the mango for this was from the philippines, and the eggplant was local. the cilantro probably came from california.

Thanks for the info. Actually now that I think about it, our produce probably comes from all over these days too.

Santos- your blog has been a pleasure to follow. anytime i feel uninspired in the kitchen I check to see what you've posted! simply amazing- thank you for continuing to share!
-Candace

cfongart.tumblr.com

awww thanks candace! happy holidays to you!

Hi Santos,

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Thanks and I hope to hear from you soon, Shelley from Delectable Duo

hello delectable shelley, love the tumblr, thanks for letting me know. yes, of course you can use the photo as now i want to see the outfit it might have inspired :)