>>Loretta: Hi! I'm Loretta Barrett Oden.
Welcome to “Native Origins,”
a cooking show that takes us back to the basics
of traditional and healthy foods
that are also easy to prepare for our elders,
their caregivers and families.
We're here at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian
in Washington, D.C.,
and I'm here with my great old friend,
Executive Chef Freddie Bitsoie.
And I'm delighted to be here
cooking a dish that we both know quite well.
We're doing the three sisters salad,
the three sisters being corn, bean and squash.
Kind of a pan-Indian ingredient
base, I guess. >>Freddie: Yeah, absolutely.
>>Loretta: I call this the three sisters and friends.
Because to this, we're going to add
some wonderful wild rice from the north country,
the Anishinabe, the Ojibwe people, who
gather the wild rice up in the Great Lakes region.
Then we're gonna skip down to South America
and put in a very high-protein mix of quinoa,
tomatoes, a little bit of toasted cumin,
jicama, avocado, cooked black beans,
the beautiful cooked wild rice, a bit of chopped mint,
diced yellow and green summer squash,
chopped cilantro, roasted kernels of corn,
sliced scallions, chopped, seeded jalapeños,
minced garlic and a pinch of salt.
We're gonna cook some of this red and white quinoa.
It comes to a boil really quickly.
>>Freddie: The one thing that I know about quinoa is that it is
a staple of the Incan culture,
which is now a Peruvian culture.
And it's known as a superfood.
>>Loretta: Yes. >>Freddie: So, it has all the mighty ...
benefits for your health. It's great to have.
And it supplements a lot of proteins. So, it's very high in protein.
>>Loretta: Yeah. >>Freddie: It's a great product to have in your cupboard.
>>Loretta: As soon as it gets a little bit translucent,
then you've gotta get it out of there. Pick it up.
Drain it through here.
We're going to start putting all of these beautiful ingredients together,
and there's really no order, no rhyme or reason to this.
We'll just start with the quinoa.
If you just have canned beans uh...just drain them,
and rinse them really well, and drain them again.
You're going to be in charge of making the vinaigrette
or the dressing for this gorgeous salad. >>Freddie: All right.
The ingredients are as simple as can be.
>>Freddie: Olive oil, right? OK. >>Loretta: Yes.
>>Freddie: Lime juice. >>Loretta: Yeah, have a little bit of lime juice.
>>Freddie: And this is rice wine vinegar. >>Loretta: Yes.
>>Freddie: All right. >>Loretta: Chef Freddie is gonna add
a little bit of uh...honey to this 'cause I like a little bit of sweetness
with the tartness of the rice wine. >>Freddie: Yeah.
Can I take some of your salt? >>Loretta: Yes.
>>Freddie: All right. Awesome. >>Loretta: Yeah.
>>Freddie: Just a little pinch here, OK?
>>Loretta: So I'm gonna keep assembling while he's making this lovely vinaigrette.
So it's literally just taking all of these ingredients
and putting them in a bowl.
And just a pinch of salt
and then we're going to mix this.
Look at the colors. >>Freddie: That's beautiful.
>>Loretta: The more color you can put into your food,
the better for you it's going to be.
I always say that you feast with your eyes
before you ever take that first forkful or spoonful of food.
So it needs to be gorgeous.
And let's put some of that vinaigrette. >>Freddie: You're ready for the vinaigrette?
>>Loretta: Yes. >>Freddie: All right.
>>Loretta: So, this dish could not be simpler.
You know, you can add to the ingredient list
or take away. Just that base of the corn, beans and squash,
the three sisters, is the foundation.
This food is really our medicine.
You know we can
solve a lot of the health problems of our people
with the right choices of food.
Thank you so much for watching.
For more information on this recipe, go to
aarp.org/nativeorigins
and you'll get all the information you need.
>>Loretta: Thank you. >>Freddie: Thank you.
[Loretta laughing] >>Loretta: No, thank you.