2013 is the International Year Of Quinoa, with quinoa being one of South America's most popular exports next to doomsday predictions. You pronounce it "keen-wah", and increasingly, you can buy it at any reputable grocery store. Quinoa isn't exactly a grain, although uncooked it looks something like millet. Quinoa prepares much like rice, although it doesn't taste like rice.
In a suitable small pot, boil one part quinoa to two parts water or clear soup stock until the liquid is absorbed and the quinoa puffs out. Fluff the quinoa with a fork, and it's ready to go just like that, with total prep time taking roughly ten minutes. A half cup of uncooked quinoa will expand to a cup when cooked, and should be enough to feed one or two people.
My friend Sean first directed me to quinoa, and I immediately came to love its versatile grainy-nutty flavour. Quinoa is extremely rich in nutrients as well as being a good source of protein.
Lately, quinoa has also been the source of recent breathless gonzo journalism, especially in the form of a series of UK-biased articles by The Guardian, which you can find using a basic Internet search. These articles paint quinoa as the greatest destabilizing force for the South American economy since Hugo Drax built his space shuttle launch facility along the Amazon in "Moonraker" (1979). Naturally, only vegetarian subscribers to The Guardian have the wits and know-how to save their well-intentioned but ultimately silly South American cousins from the folly of their ancient ways.
The recipe pictured above features quite a lot of meat, although it's very low in fat. First, I scrambled an egg in a teaspoon of olive oil in a hot pan. Scrambled egg in oil instead of butter makes the egg much flakier. I removed the egg and kept it for later. While the quinoa boiled, I diced a breast of chicken and fried it in the pan with a spoon of olive oil along with a handful of shrimp. I added peas, two tablespoons of soy sauce and a tablespoon of minced ginger (which you can find in most grocery stores, or you can mince your own ginger root by hand). I added the cooked quinoa to the meat and added the cooked egg and stirred. That's it! Twenty minutes from start to finish, and you have a nutritious and tasty meal ready to go. For more veg and less meat, try adding some fried onion or fried celery chunks in place of the shrimp. As NASA would say about quinoa, which they very highly recommend as a food for astronauts, "You're good to go!"
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