5 mistakes you might also be making with quinoa
Say wine, snacks or haute cuisine and the gourmands at online food magazine FavorFlav know where to drink, how to eat it and what to cook. This time our cheffies serve you: mistakes you make with quinoa.
Quinoa… What do you think when you read that? Tasty? Or super boring? As a side dish or meal base, it certainly sows a lot of division, with haters on one side and loyal believers on the other. And there are also just neutrals in between, you know (hi). But if you really love serving this, read here which common mistakes you should avoid.
I don't make it often anymore since a child declared that she really didn't find ‘the guinea pig’ that tasty. But even if you do like quinoa or even find it very tasty, you probably don't enjoy the mushy, sticky, sometimes bitter mess it becomes if you prepare it incorrectly. So learn from these five mistakes and see how you can avoid them.
Not rinsing the quinoa
Mistake mistake mistake. You might get away with not rinsing your rice all the time (better to do so), but quinoa really needs to be held under cold running water in a very fine sieve for at least thirty seconds and stirred around a bit with your fingers. The layer around it tastes dusty and bitter if you don't do this, so if you also don't like licking a brick, don't skip this step out of laziness. And again: really a very fine sieve, because those little things (grains) are tiny!
Sticking to the instructions
You can stick to mine (which are more suggestions), but what’s on the packaging I generally don’t find the best ratio of water:quinoa. Start with one cup of quinoa (filled to the brim) and one and a half cups plus one tablespoon of water. Add the cold water with the quinoa in the pot and then bring it to a boil.
Not seasoning the cooking water
You pasta water you do add salt, right? Whoa, definitely don’t put that much salt in your quinoa water. Unsalted quinoa is indeed boring and dumb, so definitely add half a teaspoon of salt or a quarter of a bouillon cube. And you can really give the flavor department a boost by throwing in some robust herbs like bay leaves or rosemary, and a crushed garlic clove. You’ll fish those out later.
You want to meddle with it the whole time
Just let it go for a bit. Once it’s all seasoned and boiling, turn the heat down low and put the lid on the pot. Then set a timer for 15 minutes and walk away for a bit, agreed? Don’t keep lifting the lid and peeking, because then it won’t cook evenly and it will take longer. If you really want to keep an eye on it, put a glass lid on so you can still see. Which is pretty boring, so just go do something else.
And then you forget the steaming time
The quinoa is almost done when a nice light curly thread has emerged from each grain (it’s less gross than it sounds) and all the moisture has been absorbed. Then you turn off the heat and you need to be a little patient, because the last few minutes steaming in the pot with the lid on ensures that it becomes completely soft and fluffy and the last bit of moisture at the bottom of the pot evaporates. Pro tip: before steaming, briefly fluff with a fork and then wedge a piece of kitchen paper between the edge of the pot and the lid. This catches the condensation droplets so they don’t drip back into the pot and make your quinoa wet again. And from here you go riffing. Think of quinoa with warm chorizo, shrimp, and tomato or cook it in a hearty chicken soup. In any case, there’s definitely something to be made from it. Good luck!
