Emmer “Polenta”

A couple weeks ago we got in a some organic emmer (the Italians call it Farro) and spelt products from Lentz Farms in Eastern Washington. We got whole emmer and spelt berries and rolled emmer and spelt. We also got a nice cracked emmer cereal that I immediately knew I wanted to play with. I was also on orders from the boss to start creating recipes using Castelmagno (a fairly rare cheese from the north of Italy).

What I did was to make polenta with the emmer cereal and it turned out beautifully.

First, I made a porcini mushroom broth (yes, we carry dried porcini at PFI). I made it simply by simmering the porcini with garlic, chopped onion and salt to make a dark, coffee-colored broth. You could add typical stock vegetables to this and you could roast those vegetables first. I didnt and was happy with the results for my use.

Once I had my broth, I slowly cooked the cereal with it (3 cups of broth to each cup of cereal) until the mixture was quite thick, even stiff. At that point I grated some of the Castelmagno (about 2 ounces of the grated cheesefor each cup of cereal) into the cooked cereal and stirred it well. I also added a few dried oregano leaves to the mixture. At this point you would salt and (white) pepper the polenta to taste.

You could, at this point, just serve it hot as a side dish for ragouts or meats. Or you could move onto the next step in our game. The choice is yours.

The next step:

Spread the mixture into a sort of cake about 1 thick onto a plate or cookie sheet and cover with plastic wrap. Cool in the refrigerator until cold.

When the mixture is cold, remove it from the refrigerator and cut it into squares or diamonds or whatever shapes make you happy. Its easiest if the shapes fit comfortably on your food-turner (spatula). Chill the shapes again briefly.

Remove them once again from the refrigerator and brush them with a good, grassy extra virgin olive oil. Grill them over a quick hot fire, until nicely marked and heated through. About 4 minutes per side should do the trick. We like to grill over rosemary wood (its plentiful in our yard).

You may serve these hot as side dishes or you may let them cool (on a rack and not in the refrigerator or youll lose your nice crispy bits) and use them as bases for canapé-style appetizers. Again, the choice is yours.

Black Chick Pea Salad

From Daniel: My measurements here are approximate and the recipe generally is intended to be a template rather than an exact guide.

This is the base of the salad

1 14 ounce Timeless Natural Food Black Kabuli ^TM Chick Peas
2 1/2 cups medium bulgar wheat
Lemon Juice
Extra virgin olive oil
Garlic, peeled and minced very fine
Salt
Pepper
1 cup well-chopped fresh mint leaves

Rinse and pick through the chick peas there might be the occasional bit of grit or even a pebble. Relax. Thats how you know they were grown someplace. Combine the chick peas in a pan large enough to hold them and 4 ½cups of water. Bring to a boil and then reduce the heat and simmer the beans for about 2 hours, or until tender, but not yet soft. Drain and cool in the refrigerator.

In a large bowl , combine the bulgar wheat with 4 -5 cups (depending upon how chewy you want it) of salty hot water. Set aside. The bulgar will absorb all the liquid in a fairly short time and it wont get at all pasty. Perfect for salad.

Once the bulgar has absorbed all the water, add the chick peas to the bowl.

Make a dressing with lemon juice, a goodbuttery olive oil (my current pick for this recipe would be Kouras), minced garlic to taste, salt & pepper to taste. The proportions I use for the dressing is about 1:1 juice/oil, but your tastes may very. If you want less oil but dont want a more intense lemon flavor you could add a little water to the dressing.

Add your dressing to the salad. Its okay if this makes our ingredients pretty wet. The bulgar will absorb any excess and will only be improved in this way. Adjust seasonings again. Add the mint leaves now.

Additions:

This is where the fun starts. You can add pretty much anything to this salad and it will be more fun. I added pitted calamata olives, sliced cucumber, diced sweet red pepper, chopped scallions and sliced yellow crookneck squash to my salad and it was lovely. Heres a list of suggested additions:

· Pitted olives
· Cucumber
· Peppers (sweet or hot, pickled or roasted)
· Yellow crookneck or zucchini squash
· Scallions
· Fresh figs
· Dried cranberries
· Crumbled Feta Cheese
· Fresh peas
· Pine nuts or almonds
· Persimmons
· Roughly cut spinach
· Pickled shallots
· Capers
· Cherry tomatoes
· Shaved Kefalotyri
· Grilled beets
· Grilled fennel
· Flat-leaf parsley
· Fresh oregano or basil leaves
· Dill weed

Dont let that be a limiting list. Use your imagination here. It would be hard to fail this salad.

Black Chick Pea Hummous

14 ounce package of Black Kabuli Chick Peas, from Timeless Natural Foods
1/2 to 1 ounce of raw, peeled garlic
1 tablespoon fresh lemon zest
2 – 3 teaspoons salt (to taste)
1 tablespoon Aleppo pepper
3/4 cup Moomtax Koura Extra Virgin Olive Oil
juice of two lemons, freshly squeezed
1 cup Al-Wadi tahina

Wash the chick peas thoroughly. Place them in a pan with at least 5 cups of water. Bring to a boil and then lower the flame. Simmer for at least 2 hours. We found that three and a half hours was about right for hummous. Drain the chick peas, reserving about a cup of the bean liquor (the water the beans were cooked in – just in case).

Cool the chick peas completely.

In the bowl of a food processor, using the metal blade, pulse the chick peas, the garlic, the lemon zest, the salt and the Aleppo pepper until they resemble the texture of coarse corn meal. With the food processor running, add the olive oil and the lemon juice. Then, with the food processor still running, add the tahina. At this point, if the hummous is too thick, you may add, tablespoon at a time, the bean liquor until the hummous acheives the desired consistency.

Serve at room temperature, garnished with olive oil and sliced cucumber, with warm pita bread, feta cheese and olives.

The yield is approximately 5 cups, depending upon how much liquid you add to acheive the consistency you desire.

Recipe by Daniel C. Mcglothlen

Tapanade, PFI-style

2 cups Black Provincal Olives (with thyme), pitted – available at our olive counter
3 each
3 TBLSP d’Amico Capers in Salt, rinsed and dried
2 TBLSP Fresh Lemon Juice
2 or 3 cloves garlic
2 tsp fresh thyme or 1 tsp dry thyme leaves
3 TBLSP Olive Oil (French, such as Arnaud, or Sicilian, such as Partana, if you prefer a bit more bite)
salt and pepper to taste

Combine the first 6 ingredients in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the metal blade. Pulse until the mixture is well-chopped but still coarse. Add the olive oil with the food processor running. Stop processing when you have acheived a coarse paste. Salt and pepper to taste.

makes about 2 3/4 cups

Hummous bi Tahini, PFI-style

From Daniel, PFI employee

1 15. 5 ounce can Goya Chick Peas
2/3 cup Al Wadi Ground Tahini
juice of 2-3 lemons
2 tablespoons Olive Oil (use a middle eastern oil, such as Alphonso’s, for this)
4 -5 cloves fresh garlic, crushed
salt

Combine all ingredients in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse until the desired consistency is reached. I prefer my hummous to be coarse, so this takes very little time in my kitchen.

Garnish with a little olive oil (enough to keep the hummous from forming a dark skin), smoked paprika and finely chopped flat-leaf parsley.