I am happy to introduce a new segment to my blog “Tip of the week” on Thursdays..:)
So, the tip I am coming up with is “Dry Roast Quinoa”.
To know a little about this spectacular grain – Quinoa ( pronounced as “keenwa”) is getting popular and called as super food. Nutritional evaluations of quinoa indicate that it is a source of complete protein. It is also gluten free and makes a great substitute for rice.
In their natural state, quinoa seeds have a coating of bitter-tasting because of chemical compounds in abundance. The process of dry roast helps in removing the bitter coating. Isn’t that great to know!!
How to do:
Take a pan and heat it on medium flame for few mins. The whole idea is to have the pan hot before you start roasting these tiny grains.
Dry roast, sometimes might be time consuming because you need to have all the attention on them. But then, the trick is, you leave those grains on the hot pan until you hear tiny crackle noise. Once you start hearing it every second that’s when you keep moving so that it gets roasted evenly. The crackle noise is nothing but the bitter coating on the grain is coming off.
Once, they are done they should look like the pic on left and the pic on right is before roasting. 
Trust me, the roasted grains tastes so much better than the regular ones and my husband and I eat almost 3 times a week 😉 and the best part of this is, it is a One-Dish Meal, means less cooking time and less dishes to wash..;-)
In this context, I wanted to share a delicious recipe that I found on youtube and here is the link :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kL8O6Y9GbMQ – Spanish style Quinoa
This is such a great recipe and I cook with different vegetables, different beans and different herbs.
Beans – In the original recipe it is Red beans and I use, chickpea, pinto beans and Edamame.
Herbs – Since we use Cilantro in every Indian dish to make it different I use Basil, Rosemary and Mint ( My fav is Basil)
Please do try this recipe with roasted quinoa and I am sure you will never get bored of this super healthy food 🙂
And don’t forget to let me know your thoughts.
Have a great day!!
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