Sorry, but I looked it up and it doesn't say if it's a bean or some sort of mill like rice or whatever...what is it exactly? It looks like it can be a rice. It's loaded with protein so I need to include it in my diet.
Quinoa has a light, fluffy texture when cooked, and its mild, slightly nutty flavor makes it an alternative to white rice or couscous.
A common cooking method is to treat quinoa much like rice, bringing two cups of water to a boil with one cup of grain, covering at a low simmer and cooking for 14–18 minutes or until the germ separates from the seed. The cooked germ looks like a tiny curl and should have a slight bite to it (like al dente pasta). Alternatively, one can use a rice cooker to prepare quinoa. To that end, one volume of quinoa should be combined with two volumes of water.
Vegetables and seasonings can also be added to make a wide range of dishes. Chicken or vegetable stock can be substituted for water during cooking, adding flavour. It is also suited to vegetable pilafs, complementing bitter greens like kale.
Quinoa can serve as a high-protein breakfast food mixed with honey, almonds, or berries; it is also sold as a dry product, much like corn flakes.
Last edited by PhotoChick; 12-05-2008 at 02:41 PM.
I love it. I think it kind of looks like millet (bird seed) to me, and after cooking it does look like there are little light curls of hair (or condom rings, I guess).
I usually use it like rice. My husband loved it when I substituted cooked quinoa for the rice in my usual fried rice recipe, but he's not as fond of it as a plain grain instead of plain rice. Hubby is a plain rice ADDICT, so almost nothing competes with plain rice for him, except possibly wild-rice - and it has to be wild-cultivated local wild rice. Hubby's uncle (by marriage) is Menomonee (Ojibwa) Indian and cultivates wild-rice every year in the traditional way with just two guys in a canoo in the marshes. It really does look and taste different than packaged (cultivated) wild rice. The rice is dark green instead of black and the hull isn't as hard, so when you cook it, it cooks and puffs (breaks the outer shell) faster. It also has a lot more flavor. I thought I didn't care for wild rice, and now I know that I like the "good stuff." It is more expensive than pacakged wild rice, because it's a lot more labor-intensive to gather the wild stuff (and only folks of local tribal heritage are allowed to cultivate it - and only in the old way, because it's a protected species).
My DH likes quinoa plain, I only like it seasoned. THe flakes IMHO are not good! Tried cooking it like any flaked hot cereal - bleck! I mixed them with other cereals to finish it up, but won't bother with that again.....
Its sold in the markets next to the rice? I think I had this yesterday, but I thought it was brown rice. I ordered steamed broccoli and chicken at the Chinese restaurant and they gave me something that looked like rice but it wasn't...kinda flakey as you say Pat. Hmmmm...
It would be unusual for a Chinese restaurant to serve quinoa, it's a South American grain. In this day of fusion cooking, it's not impossible, but I'd still be surprised.
There are hundreds of varieties of rice, so if it looked like rice, it probably was rice of a variety you're not used to. Or a rice noodle or bean thread. Was it think and crispy, or flat and sticky (sticky rice or glutinous rice is also common in many chinese and other asian cooking styles).
Quinoa doesn't really look like rice, it's beige and round and the little tails it has are very distinctive. Google "picture of cooked quinoa" and you'll get some very good pictures of what it looks like cooked. The grains are almost lentil shaped and the little sprout like tails are very distinctive (well, when I just googled now, I really can't shake the tiny condom image).
The flakes are a processed (generally minimally, but still processed) breakfast food (like corn vs. cornflakes), so the flakes wouldn't be something that would generally be served as a side dish.
Quinoa is not a grain. It's not in the grain family. I know this for sure - it's Kosher for Passover and no grains are allowed on Passover.
Quinoa is actually from the beet family. It's a seed. It is the only non-meat food that is a "perfect-protein", containing all 9 esssential amino acids.
Quinoa ???
