“Why don’t you write about quinoa,” one of my friends suggested. Great idea, I thought, but I have no idea how to cook the stuff. So about a month ago I bought a pack of white quinoa (there’s red, white and brown to choose from) and it languished in my pantry until two days ago. This is the story of how not to cook it…

Follow the instructions on the pack – that’s a good start, I thought. So I mixed a cup of quinoa with 2 cups of water, according to the instructions, and simmered it until the water was absorbed – similar to cooking rice. I ended up with a gluggy beige mess! Then I tossed it, rather heavily, with roast pumpkin, roast beetroot, feta cheese, cucumber and tomato and served it to my family.  It was certainly not a good food combination but they gallantly tried it. Needless to say they didn’t ask for seconds – and we all had Weetbix for dessert!

The next day I went out to lunch at Richmond Road Cafe – a fantastic cafe in Grey Lynn, Auckland. On the menu was Chicken Quinoa Salad. I later found out that it’s one of the most popular dishes on the menu. Here was my chance to experience quinoa as it should be – and it was great! Red and white quinoa mixed with just a few almonds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and cranberries, and served with slices of delicately cooked chicken. It was subtle, delicious and not a hint of glugginess!

I just had to ask the head chef how she did it. The lunch rush was over and Sharna Pito, head chef at the cafe, kindly chatted to me about how to cook quinoa. “Cook it like pasta,” she explained. “Lots of boiling water, lightly salted. A cup should take about 4-5 minutes. Drain it well and it’s ready to use.” So that explains why mine hadn’t worked. And what about flavours to put with it? “I think nuts, seeds and dried fruit work really well with quinoa,” Sharna told me. “And a light vinaigrette dressing using citrus juice or white wine vinegar. Balsamic is far too strong for it.”

Fantastic! A five-minute chat with an obliging expert has saved me hours of quinoa cooking disasters. I can’t wait to try it out in some summer salads… or perhaps I’ll just pop back to Richmond Road Cafe for Sharna’s latest quinoa creation, and a glass of their ginger, lemon and elderflower tea – heaven!

Related:

Quinoa: A Healthful Alternative to Rice – Ingredient swap – Revolution Health

Breakfast quinoa with clementines, sour cherries and pecans

Black quinoa salad — Salade de quinoa noir

Quinoa Bananna Bread recipe

“If I rinse the pasta, I lose my job!” Luca Ciano, Australasian chef for Barilla Pasta, quipped in his truly Italian accent as he drained an enormous bowl of perfectly cooked pasta. “Now the pasta is hot and thirsty so we need to give it some beautiful flavours to soak up” He tipped in a bowl of thinly sliced celery, spring onion, cherry tomatoes, basil and rocket. Then generously doused it with extra virgin olive oil, a jar of ricotta sauce and some grated, salted ricotta. With a few deft tosses of the bowl the pasta was ready for the 40 or so of us food writers and media to try – bellisimo!

What a great way to spend a Tuesday morning – learning about pasta and getting the Italian perspective on all those pasta cooking queries.

Should I add salt to the cooking water?

Yes – to add flavour. No other reason – just flavour as the pasta absorbs the water and swells.

Should I add oil to the cooking water?

Never! Oil just coats the pasta and causes the sauce to slide off rather than bind.

Why does my pasta stick to the side of the pot?

Either you need to give it a good stir when you add it, or you are using a poor quality pasta which releases lots of sticky starch as it cooks. Ah ha! Finally I have found out why my budget pasta goes sticky and soggy – even when it’s not over-cooked! I’m off to buy a pasta that uses a high quality wheat. It really does make a difference.

How can you tell if a pasta is good quality?

If the water doesn’t froth intensely when boiled and remains clear after cooking, you’re onto a winner. Hmm – when I drain my cheap pasta the water is anything but clear! All that starch that’s meant to stay in the pasta goes down the sink and makes the sieve hard to clean.

The better the pasta, the less sauce

A general rule is to use as much sauce as pasta. “Kiwis and Aussies use far too much sauce,” Luca chided us. “We’re having pasta, not sauce with pasta!” Oh dear – yet another pasta blooper I’ve often made.

I often use pasta as a base to get fussy kids to eat meat and vegetables (disguised as pasta sauce). I even serve thick soup over pasta for kids who don’t like soup. But I would never have admitted that yesterday surrounded as I was by brilliant cooks. I have been inspired to move up a notch from ‘mother-cook-anyway-you-can-to-get-the-healthy-food-in’ to cooking real pasta the real way. Let’s see if the family notice any difference!