Grain Salads for Summer Tùy chọn

[phannhathieu]

Grain Salads for Summer
Favorite Camp Recipes – Grain Dishes
Julia Ferré
Hot weather and hot stoves don’t mix. When the temperatures rise, it is hard to stand by a stove and prepare food, any food actually, and especially foods that require lengthy cooking – grains and beans. Grains and beans are the cornerstone of macrobiotic meals, and, for me, a day without grains and beans is like a day without sunshine.
For this reason, I pull out recipes for salads. Grains and beans incorporated into salads are a way to get nourishment in a refreshing and light way. Plus, the inclusion of greens, yellows, and oranges adds pleasant colors to grains dishes, lightening them in appearance as well as in flavor.
Grain salads can be made with raw vegetables such as cucumbers, celery, and lettuce or cooked vegetables such as corn, peas, or carrots. When using cooked food, cool before mixing to avoid excess heat that can spoil a salad.
Serve salads at a comfortable room temperature, or slightly chilled if you live a very hot climate. It may be tempting to think of consuming cold or chilled foods to balance summer heat yet it is important to use discretion. Chilled and cooled foods taken in excess can weaken the stomach and intestines, dampening digestive fire needed for optimal absorption, and setting the body up for too much internal coolness once autumn arrives.
Rather than “adding cold”, think of “reducing heat”. In practical terms, this means reducing how often you bake or cooking early in the day before it gets hot. This idea also applies to limiting foods such as animal foods, heavy grain and bean casseroles, hearty vegetable stews, or “too hot” spices that create excess internal heat. Cinnamon and ginger are warming spices that increase internal heat and are best limited in summer. Garlic, cumin, and chili peppers are warming spices that disperse internal heat and can be used on occasion and liberally, as desire. Other herbs and spices can be used to enhance food – both for flavor and for temperature. Dill, basil, cilantro, and other herbs and spices and lightness and freshness.
Grain salads are my favorite way to eat grains in the summer months. The following recipes are personal favorites and highlight various methods of preparing grain salads. The 5 taste rice uses cooked vegetables. The brown rice salad uses raw. The quinoa salad incorporates red lentils in the salad; the buckwheat salad uses sauerkraut. Tabouli is a classic recipe involving no cooking. Try them all and make variations as desired. All have been prepared at the France Meadows camp.

5-Taste Rice-Yield: 8 cups
Cornellia Aihara served this masterpiece of a brown rice dish often-each year of summer camp and for festivals and potlucks at Vega Study Center. She varied it with the season such as adding cooked burdock or arame in cooler months. It was always in colorful and flavorful. She sometimes referred to it as “chirashi-sushi”, “5-taste rice”, “5-color rice”, or “gomaku rice”.
Cornellia studied flower-arrangement when growing up in Japan and approached meal preparation with similar poise and perfection. She emphasized the importance of serving in odd number of dishes on a plate for a pleasing balance, using 5 or 7 choices-never 4 or 6. She did the same with this dish, aiming incorporate an odd number of ingredients. Tasted and colors were important too and she would rattle of a list of colors: white rice, black shiso, orange carrot, green scallions, and brown sesame seed. Substitutions were okay as long they coordinated such as black seaweed instead of shiso.
Tastes needed to be varied too. In this dish, soy sauce provides a salty flavor, rice and carrots a sweet flavor, ginger a hot flavor, scallions a pungent flavor, and shiso a sour flavor. While it isn’t mandatory to have all 5 tasted every time, she advised me to prepare this dish with at least 3 of the flavors.
This dish continues to be prepared at camp in honor of Cornellia. The preparation is somewhat involved yet well the effort.
2 cups short grain brown rice
4 cups water
pinch of sea salt
3 or 5 dried shiitake mushrooms, will hydrate to ½ of cup
½ cup water
1 teaspoon soy sauce
½ cup roasted sesame seeds or gomashio
1 large carrot, with quarter rounds
2 cups water
pinch of sea salt
4 Tbsp picked ginger, minced
2 Tbsp packaged dried shiso powder, OR 4 Tbsp shiso dried leaf, finely minced, using shiso packed with umeboshi plums, OR 6 Tbsp fresh shiso leaf, finely minced.
½ cup finely cut scallion or parsley.
1. Soak 2 cups brown rice in 4 cups water and 3 to 5 shiitake mushrooms in ½ cup water for 4 to 8 hours.
2. To cook rice: add sea salt to rice, cover pan, and bring to boil in medium heat. Simmer in 1 hour over low heat using a heat diffuser. Remove from heat to cool. Alternately, if desired, use a pressure cooker to prepare rice. Use 3 cups of water, rather than 4. Pressure cook for 45 minutes following directions as per pressure cooker instructions.
3. To cook shiitake mushrooms: remove soaked mushrooms from water and reserved water. Remove hard stems and discard (or retain for soup stock). And slice caps into thin crescents. Return to soaking water with the soy sauce, bring to a boil and swimmer 15 minutes or until soft. Let water cook away. Cool.
4. Roast sesame seeds in a dry skillet, 7 to 10 minutes until toasted, stirring frequently. Grind in suribachi or blender until most seeds are crushed.
5. To cook carrots: bring the 2 cups of water to a boil. Add a small pinch of sea salt and the cut carrots. Return to a boil, then remove and drain. Cool. (Water can be saved for sup stock).
6. To assemble 5-taste rice: mix 6 cups cooked, cooled rice with ½ cup cooked shiiake mushrooms, ½ cup roasted sesame seeds or gomashio, 1 cup blanched carrot, 4 tbsp minced pickled ginger, 2 or 6 Tbsp shiso, and ½ cup finely cut scallion or parsley. Taste, adjust seasonings, adding more shiso, pickled ginger, or parsley and serve.

Brown rice salad – yield: 4 cups
This is an easy recipe to prepare and lends well to substitutions or additions. Use other cooked grains such as millet or quinoa, and other ingredients such as cooked corn or peas, or garnish with colorful and nutritious adornments such as avocado, tomato, or crumbled nori.
At camp, chickpeas are often served alongside this salad rather than incorporated. Either way is satisfying as the protein in the chickpeas combines with the carbohydrates in the rice to provide complete nutrition.
¼ of red onion, finely mince, ¼ cup
1 Tbsp umeboshi vinegar
3 Tbsp olive oil
1 celery stalk, finely diced, ¾ cup
½ carrot, grated, ¼ cup
3 cups cooked brown rice, or 2 ½ cups cooked brown rice and ½ cup cooked drained garbanzo beans
Mix red onion and umeboshi vinegar and let sit 10 minutes. Mix in olive oil, celery and carrot. And cook brown rice or rice and beans, let sit 20 minutes before serving. For variation, add chopped olives, minced parsley, sliced radishes, or chopped cucumber. Serve on lettuce leaves.

Quinoa Red Lentil Salad – Yield: 5 ½ to 6 cups
This salad combines grains and beans for complete nutrition. Cumin and garlic and more flavor; use higher quantities if preferred.
3 cup water
½ cup red lentils, rinsed and drained
1 cup quinoa, rinsed and drained
2 cloves garlic, minced, 1 Tbsp
½ tsp ground cumin
1 tsp dill weed
¼ tsp sea salt
½ small red onion, minced, ½ cup
1 Tbsp umeboshi vinegar
3 Tbsp olive oil
1 large celery stalks, minced, ½ cup
1 carrot, grated, 1 cup
1 Tbsp parsley, finely cut
½ cup walnuts, roasted and chopped, optional
Bring 3 cups water to a boil in medium size saucepan. Add lentils, return to a boil with lid ajar on pan. Simmer 5 minutes.
Add quinoa, garlic, cumin, dill weed, and sea salt and simmer 30 minutes until all liquid is adsorbed.
Mince red onion and mix with umeboshi vinegar. Let stand for 10 to 15 minutes. Add olive oil, minced celery, and grated carrots to red onion and let marinate while quinoa finishes cooking and cooling. Roast walnuts in skillet for 5 to 6 minutes until fragrant. Cool and chop.
When quinoa cooled, mix with vegetables, parsley, and walnuts if used. Serve.

Buckwheat Salad – yield: 5 to 5 ½ cups
David and Cynthia Briscoe (www.macroamerica.com) presented this recipe at a camp cooking class a number of years ago and receive a favorable review. Buckwheat is a “dry” grain and this salad is especially helpful in hot, humid climates and to decrease water retention.
3 cups cooked buckwheat groats (pre-cook in water and sauerkraut juice)
pinch of sea salt
2 Tbsp finely chopped parsley
1 cup steamed, chopped kale or leftover leafy greens
1 cup chops, drained sauerkraut
½ cup red cabbage, thinly sliced, blanched and sprinkled with ¼ tsp brown rice vinegar to brighten and preserve the color
¼ to ½ cup soy sauce
1 tsp ginger juice
Sauté finely chopped parsley in a very small amount of water. Mix the parsley with the buckwheat. Mix in the steamed, chopped kale and chopped sauerkraut. Mix the soy sauce and ginger juice, pour over the buckwheat salad, and mix in.

Tabouli Salad – Yield: 4 ½ cups
This is a variation from Book of Whole Meals by Annemarie Colbin, page 192. (See: www.foodandhealing.com)
1 ½ cups water
1 cup bulgur
Mint dressing:
2 Tbsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp soy sauce
2 Tbsp olive oil
5 leaves fresh mint, 2 Tbsp
1 handful parsley
1 stalk celery. ¾ cup
3 whole scallion, ½ cup
5 medium radishes, ¼ cup
5 large romaine lettuce leaves alfalfa sprouts
To prepare bulgur, add 1 ½ cups boiling water to 1 cup bulgur. Cover and let sit 45 minutes or until water is absorbed .Fluff - will yield about 3 cups cooked bulgur.
To make mint dressing: combine lemon juice, soy sauce, and olive oil in a small bowl or jar, mixing well. Chop the mint very fine and add to the liquid mixture. To improve the flavor, allow the dressing to stand for 10 to 15 minutes.
Chop the parsley, celery, and scallion; slice the radishes into thin rounds. Combine the vegetables in a salad bowl and stir in the bulgur. Add the Mint Dressing, toss and allow to marinate for 45 minutes. Serve on lettuce leaves topped with sprouts.

Julia Ferré, author of Basic Macrobiotic Cooking, coordinates the children’s program and plans the menus at French Meadows camp.