hello this is chef john from food wishes comm with green quinoa tabouli that's
right I'm not the biggest fan in the world of quinoa and I've never really
liked to believe that much so the fact that I love this as much as I did really
came as quite a surprise in fact I'm gonna make the prediction that if you
try this it may and probably will become one of your new favorite cold side
dishes and we haven't even mentioned how much healthier this is which I probably
will later but for now let's just go ahead get started and we'll begin by
prepping our herbs and I'm going to be using three of them starting with two
large bunches of parsley and as you may have noticed we're gonna use the curly
variety for this recipe which has a little more of a subtle flavor and
softer texture and then besides the parsley we'll also go with some fresh
mint and then last but not least one of my all-time favorite herbs tarragon
which always provides a beautiful sweet aromatic note to whatever it's used in
and then what we'll want to do after we've washed and picked out most of the
stems is to take approximately half of these herbs and briefly blanch them in
some boiling water to lock in that green color in no measuring just go by eye and
what we'll do is transfer those into some plain boiling water next to which
we have a big bowl of ice-cold water and we are literally only going to give
these things a few seconds all right pretty much as fast as we can transfer
them in and give them one quick stir and we'll see that color turn to a bright
green as soon as that happens we will quickly transfer those into the ice
water where we'll let them sit for a few minutes until they're cooled completely
at which point we will drain that very well and then squeeze out all the excess
water at which point we will transfer that into a blender in which we're gonna
eventually make our dressing but not yet because we're gonna do that while our
quinoa is cooking which is the next step and of course before we cook our quinoa
we got to rinse it off so we'll take a couple cups of white quinoa and rinse
that under cold water for a minute or two and then what we'll do once at's
rinsed is head back to the water that we blanched the herbs and we will want to
bring that back to a boil and what we'll do is add a spoon of salt to that as
well as our rinsed quinoa and we will give that a stir and adjust
our heat to about medium because what we want to do is simmer this for about 12
minutes or so until that quinoa has just barely tender
okay so we'll let that cook and while it does we could take care of some other
prep for example we can go ahead and chop up the rest of the herbs and other
than use a sharp knife I really don't have any tips here except for maybe
don't chop these herbs to fine all right tabbouleh is first and foremost an herb
salad so we definitely want to feel and see this stuff so I don't think we want
these herbs to too fine so I'm gonna stop right about here and then the other
thing we can probably do all our quinoa is cooking is make our dressing before
that we'll add a few peeled garlic cloves to our blanched herbs as well as
the freshly squeezed juice from 2 lemons and by the way this stuff's just for
starters we're almost always going to add more of
these ingredients later and then we'll finish this off with a little bit of
extra virgin olive oil and that's it a very basic simple dressing that will
take over and blend until very smooth and as usual we'll start slow pulsing on
and off stopping a scraping the sides if necessary and then eventually we will
crank it up and finish on high speed until we have something very very smooth
and very green and that's it we'll turn that off and by now hopefully our quinoa
is cooked and if it is and mine was we'll remove that from the heat and of
course drain it but do not rinse it all right we'll just let it sit in a
strainer for at least five minutes draining thoroughly giving it the
occasional toss with this spoon which is not only gonna help it drain but also
release a lot of that heat and then what we'll do after about five minutes or so
when we're sure that's thoroughly drained is transferred into a big mixing
bowl where we're gonna want to let it continue to cool down to somewhere
between warm and room-temperature but while we wait we can go ahead and season
this up which I'm going to do with a giant pinch of kosher salt as well as
some freshly ground black pepper and a little B of the C which is food wishes
shorthand for a little bit of cayenne and then assuming our quinoa has cooled
down somewhere between room tap and warm we can go ahead and pour in our dressing
and give this all a thorough mixing and by the way I should mention I'm using
white quinoa because I think it makes for the best appearance here since it's
really gonna absorb and hold on to that green color but if you're not overly
concerned with appearance you can if you want use the rainbow variety or red
quinoa which apparently is even more nutritious okay so if you want to use a
different variety go ahead I mean you guys are after all the Margaret Meads of
your edible bird seeds but since I'm calling this green quinoa tabouli I'm
definitely going with the white but anyway we'll go ahead and give that a
mix and then what we'll do if it's not already has let this cool all the way
down to room temp before adding and stirring in our chopped herbs alright
don't do this if the mixture is still a little bit warm but if it's room temp
like mine is here you're safe and we'll go ahead and give that a mix and if we
want we could taste it but that's not going to be very useful because to
finish this salad what we really need to do is wrap it up and pop it in the
fridge for a few hours we'll let everything sort of meld together at
which point we can pull it out and do our final seasoning adjustments so
that's what I'm gonna do and did and this is what mine looked like two hours
later and we'll go ahead and give that a taste to see where we're at in roughly
100% of the time it's gonna need more stuff like usually some of everything so
I gave mine a little sampling and decided it needed some more salt and
freshly ground black pepper and cayenne and lemon juice and that's it just
kidding and olive oil and what we'll do once all that's been added is give it a
very thorough mixing and another taste and we will keep adjusting until we
determine it's perfect whatever that means and I should mention this is just
the basic tabbouleh base and at this point you could accessorize this with
all kinds of things like diced tomato or cucumber or green onions or maybe you
have some leftover grilled vegetables you want to chop up and toss in here
with a handful of feta there are just so many delicious places you can go from
here but for whatever reason I do like to keep my very simple and then what
we'll do once we've added everything we're gonna add and we're happy with the
seasoning is transfer that into something a little more attractive and
maybe finish off the top a little more of our herb trio and that's it what I'm
calling green quinoa tabbouleh is done so let me grab a fork and go in for the
official taste and as I mentioned earlier I'm not a huge tabbouleh fan and
I think that's because of the bulgur wheat I guess I'm just not a bulgur bro
but here with a smaller more subtly flavored quinoa I'm actually a huge fan
not to mention from what I hear this stuff is way better for you than wheat
all right I would tell you about the protein content and all the amino acids
but I don't want to sound like one of those dorks on TV but as usual the real
main reason you should make this is because if I good it tastes it really is
so fresh and vibrant and for me the perfect summer side dish oh and then
there's one last thing I want to show you here before we finish this green
quinoa tabouli you see me spooning into this bowl was made four days ago and
because we blanched those herbs for the dressing it still has the exact same
beautiful green appearance as it did the day we made it so in case you're
wondering why we did that extra step that's why and I went ahead and top that
with some fried andouille and some green onions to create what the kids are
calling pulled on it wrote this down an ancient grain Bowl who sounds so hip
which reminds me I would pair this with any beverage that comes into mason jar
and believe it or not even four days later in addition to retain that
beautiful color it also still tastes very fresh and vibrant and virtually
identical to when it was made so if you're looking for a beautiful and
different and delicious side dish you can make way ahead I really do hope you
give this a try soon so head over to food wishes comm for all the ingredient
amounts of wonderful as usual and as always enjoy
you