#52NewFoods: Quinoa

Last week Les Petits Chefs worked with quinoa as their #52NewFoods ingredient.  Only a handful of them told me they had eaten it before although many of them knew it as a “salad ingredient”.  The recipe we were using from the 52 New Foods Challenge book was a simple patty – made up of quinoa, breadcrumbs, eggs, Parmesan cheese, apple and onions and I partly chose to make this recipe because I saw lots of jobs to keep little hands busy through our hour-long session…

Grating cheese…

Dicing onions…. (they’re getting really good at this!)

Chopping apples really finely…

Measuring breadcrumbs…

Cracking eggs…

And finally – mixing all those ingredients with quinoa…

Yup – it was so much fun!

(and before you wonder at the sticky state of the boys’ fingers – that’s totally my fault – you are supposed to rub your fingers with olive oil before you start forming the patties but in the chaos – yes, I’m nothing if not honest, this session was messy and chaotic, in an organised sort of fashion – I just forgot)

The boys did an excellent job of making “quinoa sliders” as they started to call them.

We found the plain quinoa much easier to work with as opposed to the tri-colour one. I had cooked the tri-colour one the night before and the plain quinoa just before the session so that might have had something to do with it. The plain quinoa was definitely much more “sticky”. But the boys persevered and made about 5 of these little patties each.

More than one boys told me these looked like fish cakes, which they totally do. Then we got to fry them up. Always fun when we fry in the lab – and we all go home smelling like a chip shop 😉

The boys, Miss Carter and I worked hard to make sure not too many of these fell apart!

And ended up doing a pretty good job!

Jennifer Tyler Lee, author of The 52 New Foods Challenge, told me a trick to help these stick together when they are cooking – “put the cakes in the freezer for a few minutes before sautéeing and they’ll hold their shape better.”

Result? I managed to snag a few of these which I saved for my lunch the following day. They are REALLY good and they boys seemed to like them as well. Of course, as one told me, “they would be better with bacon” (what wouldn’t?!) but I love what a blank slate these are – open to so many possibilities for add-ins and flavours.

Get the recipe for Quinoa Crumble Cakes in The 52 New Foods Challenge cookbook here.

Want to see 52 New Foods in action? Check out the 52 New Foods Junior Chef Classes at your local Williams Sonoma (call your local store for details!)

 

Buy The 52 New Foods Challenge at your local Williams Sonoma store or on Amazon or Amazon Canada. Or for free worldwide shipping, buy from The Book Depository. What new food will YOU try this week?

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Please note: The product links from Amazon, Amazon.ca and The Book Depository are affiliate links meaning if you click over and purchase something, I will receive a very small percentage of the purchase price which goes towards maintaining eat. live. travel. write. Thank you in advance!

 

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Disclosure: I received a copy of the 52 New Foods Challenge cookbook for the purposes of taking part in the #52NewFoods Challenge through Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution Ambassador Community. I was asked to create one original recipe for the challenge. I did not receive any further compensation for writing this post nor any other promotion of the book I might be involved with.