Category: Side dishes

Gluten-free Chilean Quinoa Tabbouleh

One of our great-nieces and her husband have twin sons with wheat or gluten intolerance. Although most of us don’t think about this particular allergy, people who are allergic to wheat or other grains with gluten such as rye and barley need to avoid recipes or prepared foods that contain it. Ordinary soy sauce is made from wheat, and many commercial products such as pasta sauce, ketchup and mustard often are thickened with wheat starch.

However, many gluten-free foods are now available on store shelves and lists of gluten-free alternatives to common diet ingredients are now easy to find on the Web. For example, most supermarkets today sell both bulgar and buckwheat groats. Bulgar is made from wheat and contains gluten. Buckwheat groats are cracked buckwheat seeds which have no gluten.

We like pilaf pilaf which is made from cracked wheat or bulgar, but we also like kasha, kasha which is made with buckwheat groats. If you are careful to make your kasha with gluten-free chicken broth, you will have a wonderful side dish with no gluten that tastes different but is just as delicious as pilaf.

Another example is tabbouleh, an Eastern Mediterranean vegetable salad commonly made with bulgar or couscous, both of which contain gluten. Made with quinoa, it is a delicious gluten-free side dish. Quinoa originated in the Andes and has been cultivated for at least three thousand years by the Andean people. The Incas thought of it as sacred and called it the “mother of all grains.”

Though it has no gluten, it does have a lot of protein, dietary fiber and minerals that make it a healthful ingredient in your next batch of tabbouleh.

Kristi makes this salad often. Her introduction to the recipe says it all: “This makes quite a large dish, but it is SO good! This is one of our favorite summer dishes.” 

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups quinoa
4 cups water
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
5 T fresh lemon juice, divided
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup coarsely chopped fresh cilantro leaves
2 tsp. minced garlic
1 cup fresh corn kernels
1 cup finely chopped red onion
4 plum tomatoes
1 cup diced cucumbers
1 ripe avocado 

PROCEDURE:

Shuck two medium ears of sweet corn and use a sharp knife to cut the kernels from the cobs. You should have about a cup of corn kernels. Put them in a container and microwave them on high for about 2 1/2 minutes. Check that they are lightly cooked, and set them aside to cool.

Put the quinoa and water into a medium-sized saucepan and bring it to a boil. Reduce the heat, cover the pan and simmer until the liquid is absorbed and the quinoa is translucent. This will take ten to thirteen minutes.

Remove the pan from the heat and fluff the quinoa with a fork as you transfer it to a large mixing bowl. Let it cool to room temperature.

While the quinoa is cooling, wash and peel the cucumbers, leaving small strips of green for color. Slice the cucumber lengthwise into quarters, trim off the seeds and chop it into a half inch dice. Wash and chop the tomatoes, also into a half inch dice. You should have about a cup of each vegetable.

Remove the husks from the onion and garlic. Chop the onion into a quarter inch dice and mince the garlic.

Wash and coarsely chop the cilantro into three-eighths to half-inch pieces.

Wash and juice two or three lemons.

Sprinkle the quinoa with the salt and pepper and stir. Use a fork to fold the ingredients together from underneath the grains of quinoa. Fold four tablespoons of the lemon juice and the oil into the quinoa, then fold in the cilantro and garlic.

Toss the avocado with the remaining tablespoon of lemon juice to prevent discoloration.
Fold the corn, onion, tomatoes, cucumbers and avocado into the quinoa. Let the salad rest for three or four minutes, then taste and adjust the seasonings.

Serve at a cool room temperature within two hours of preparation.

NOTES: Kristi says that the recipe makes enough to serve eight to ten people. If you offer it as a side dish, we think that it will serve twelve or more.

If your tabbouleh seems too dry, add a little more olive oil and lemon juice.

Tabbouleh is pronounced “tah-BOO-luh.”

Lihamurekepiiras—Finnish Meat Loaf in Sour Cream Pastry

Many years ago our niece Gina and her husband gave us a little spiral-bound cookbook, Fine Finnish Foods. Compiled by Gerry Kangas of Palo, Minnesota and published in 1988, it is still in print and includes a lot of recipes passed down from mothers to daughters.

Here is a beautiful main dish that tastes as good as it looks. Even better, it is surprisingly easy to make.

INGREDIENTS:

For the dough:
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
1 cup chilled butter or margarine
1 large egg
1/2 cup sour cream

For the filling:
4 T butter
1/4 lb. mushrooms
2 1/2 lbs. lean ground beef, veal or pork
1 medium-small onion (about 2” in diameter)
1/8 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1 cup grated Cheddar or Swiss cheese
1/3 cup milk
1 egg
2 T milk

PROCEDURE:

Sift the flour and salt together. Cut the butter or margarine into the flour with a fork or pastry blender until the flour looks like coarse cornmeal. Beat the egg into the sour cream, then stir it into the flour mixture. Work the liquid into the dry ingredients until you have a soft ball. Wrap it in waxed paper or plastic film and refrigerate the dough for an hour.

Make the filling while the dough is cooling. Clean and chop the mushrooms into a quarter-inch dice. Melt the butter over medium heat in a large skillet and sauté the mushrooms for about six minutes. Add the meat, onion, salt and pepper and cook them until the meat is done and the juices have evaporated. Lower the heat if necessary, so the meat and onions do not get crisp.

Preheat the oven to 375º and grease a jelly roll pan or cookie sheet.

Remove the skillet from the heat and allow the meat to cool for five or six minutes. Grate the cheese while the meat is cooling, then mix the cheese and milk with the meat.

Divide the dough in half and roll each half into a six by fourteen-inch rectangle. Put one rectangle on the cookie sheet and spoon the meat mixture into a ridge along the center of the dough. Shape the meat into a loaf, leaving about an inch of dough around the meat. Brush the exposed dough with a little milk.

Lay the second rectangle of dough on top of the loaf and trim the dough to make a neat rectangle. Seal the edges with a fork. Beat the egg and milk together and paint the dough. Prick holes on top to let the steam escape.

Bake the loaf for thirty-five to forty-five minutes until it is golden brown. Remove it from the oven, let it cool for a few minutes, then cut thick slices to produce six to eight servings.

Serve with sour cream and lingonberry or cranberry sauce.

NOTES: I have modified Mrs. Kangas’s recipe slightly by including a little salt and pepper and using only two and a half pounds of meat.

OPTIONS: If you like spicier foods, you can add a little more salt and pepper to the meat mixture, but be especially careful with the salt, as some cheeses are quite salty. Some recipes call for three or four tablespoons of finely chopped parsley along with garlic salt and Worcestershire sauce. Try them if you want, but the Finns like to keep things simple.