http://madbaker.livejournal.com/800777.html?hc_location=ufi
Overall: B
Last week when I posted about the Farro salad with raisins and Pistacios (https://www.facebook.com/nibuca/posts/10203933873646637) Jeremy Fletcher mentioned that he had a “Farro Tabbouleh” recipe he liked and suggested I might like to try it.
I will be completely honest and say that the dish I made last night was only passingly similar to the recipe Jeremy posted. Weekly we order our groceries delivered from Safeway and when they arrived yesterday I found out that Safeway was out of green beans. So instead of green beans I substituted roasted heirloom carrots. Also I kind of skimmed the recipe initially and it wasn’t until I was about to put the onions/carrots into the oven that I realized that I was actually supposed to grill them. I figured that the carrots weren’t going to work on the grill.. and at the point where I was last night, firing up the grill for the onions smacked of effort so I decided to roast both the carrots and the onions in the oven. That said…
What worked:
– I absolutely loved the taste of the roasted onions and carrots. The oil and balsamic vinegar were just prefect. I think I need to figure out a way to use roasted onions like that independent of this salad. They were SUPER super tasty. I could have eaten the whole tray of the roasted onions. The onions added a bit of sweet to the salad.
– I ended up only using 5oz of arugula which is a good thing. I think if I’d used the whole 8oz the Farro would have been lost in the salad.
– I loved the pine nuts mixed in with the farro. Because both are about the same size it was almost a surprise when I found a pine nut in the mouthful. The pine nuts brought a nice bit of subtle crunch to the dish.
What didn’t work:
The recipe calls for the zest of one lemon but then doesn’t use the meat of the lemon or the juice. This offends my sensibilities. It’s just rude to use the zest of the lemon but not use the lemon itself. I ended up using the lemon juice as the acid in place of more vinegar on the farro.
In general I liked it. I might play around with the idea a bit and use it as inspiration for the final “perfect whole grain salad” which I’m working towards.