Just reporting in. Made a chicken stew with mushrooms dish an subbed quinoafor rice. It’s OK but IMO doesn’t have any really distinctive flavor notes. It’s very neutral and absorbs the flavors of the dish. The most interesting characteristic is that it turns somewhat gelatinous and clear like tiny glass beads if it’s in liquid.
It’s pretty expensive but that’s to be expected if it’s all hand threshed per the wiki note and requires processing to remove the bitter saponins.
I like it a lot. I make a pilaf with sautéed onions, garlic and diced carrots. It’s really tasty. Cooks quicker than rice and healthier than couscous, so fills that niche nicely.
I’m not crazy about it either, but it’s OK when mixed with other stuff. By itself, it reminds me of something that I can’t quite put my finger on that I dislike…maybe Cheerios cereal?
My brother is a lifelong vegetarian, going on 50 years. A few months ago he wrote me a funny message about finally trying this quinoa stuff… and found it awful.
He figured he was doing something wrong, so he checked his tried and true “vegetarian bible” cookbook.
I was agnostic on keen-wa but my ex-SO found this quinoa southwestern salad recipe that I thought was pretty killer, though YMMV. That was my only experience (she made it several times, all good), but I’m quinoa-curious enough to try more.
Quinoa has been hit-or-miss for me. Served as a pilaf I don’t care for it (although I’ll try making it with broth), but I made a red beans and rice-type dish with it last week that was fabulous.
I’ve tried quinoa a couple of times – don’t outright hate it, but am not enthusiastic. I understand that (in one of those oddities which make people wonder whether biologists / naturalists are altogether right in the head) it is closely related to spinach – though it looks rather like semolina or millet. I was certainly aware of a spinach-like taste to it. I like spinach well enough; but as I understand matters, quinoa is generally used in the role of a starch-type “basic” to a meal, alongside which same, other things with more taste are served. A food in that role having a quite sharp and distinct vegetable taste – just feels, to me, wrong.
I recall my early-hippy mother using quinoa quite a lot back in the 1970s.
It’s sort of the starch equivalent to tofu, I think. Not much flavor by itself but picks up flavors of what you add to it. I agree that using broth instead of water ups the intrinsic flavour quite a lot.
I use it sometimes instead of rice with stir fried veggies. A local deli makes a “perfect protein” salad that I sometimes pick up for lunch, quinoa, black beans, broccoli, peppers and a spicy dressing.
Love it, in part due to the memory of how I first learned about it. In the special features of the DVD of a David Lynch film (Mulholland?), Mr Lynch does a short instructional about cooking a quinoa and broccoli dish. It was so weird I immediately found some (not easy) and made it. Loved it ever since for both the taste and the Lynch factor.
Since that time it has become way easier to find.
ETA…I found it. Inland Empire, not Mulholland. Sureal Cite
I think that might have been your problem. Look for couscous recipes and sub in quinoa for couscous. It works well as the base for a (non mayo based) pasta salad.
I just randomly grabbed this recipe, but something more along these lines.
I’m a fan of the stuff. We eat it regularly. It does lack in flavour profile so cooking it with chicken broth and adding fresh herbs, lemon zest, roasted chick peas, sweet corn, chopped red peppers, etc… really helps. As someone mentioned earlier, just think of it as a healthy alternative to couscous.
Because of the quinoa and broccoli or because he’s clearly trying get you to confess about that guy you murdered and hid under the floorboards, all while giving you a lighthearted cooking lesson :).
The benefit of quinoa is that it has a lower glycemic index, twice the protein and five times the fiber of rice. I love rice, but it’s basically just a huge carb blast with little else going for it.
