Farro Salad
Charlie Bird makes a killer farro salad. I was there earlier in the week and was inspired to make it myself. I found the recipe on line (of course) and then played around with it myself. The key is that they cook the farro in apple cider. Farro can be a little bit like a kitchen sink. Just pile it in based on your likes.
Here is my farro salad
2 cups farro (make sure to rinse it several times to get rid of the starch)
2 cups apple cider
1 1/2 tbsp. kosher salt
4 cups water
4 bay leaves
1 cup olive oil
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 cup chopped basil
1 cup chopped mint
8 large radishes thinly sliced
1 cup shaved parmesan cheese (use a vegetable peeler)
1 1/2 cups chopped pistachio nuts
5 roasted golden beets cut into small cubes
Sea salt for finishing
In a large sauce pan add the farro, apple cider, water, salt, bay leaves and 4 cups of water to boil and then down to a simmer. A little higher than simmer or it will take forever. Then let this hang out on the stove for about 40+ minutes or until all the liquid is gone and the farro is done. Let this cool and then take out the bay leaves.
Whisk together and olive oil and lemon juice (add a pinch of salt for flavor). Then pour this over the cooled farro and mix. Add the cheese and pistachios and let this sit to let those flavors come together. I let this hang out a room temperature for 4+ hours.
Right before serving I added in the rest; beets, mint, basil, radishes and sea salt. Mix and serve. You can eliminate the beets and add cherry tomatoes sliced in half. You could add in anything that rocks your boat. Sliced asparagus?
Great spring/summer salad.
Comments (Archived):
Yum.Fan of Charile Bird from the beginning. Food, place, wine list. Just fun.Like that however impossible it is to get a reservation online when I call, they remember me and help make something happen.
Nice one on the apple cider trick. I’m gonna try that with quinoa, wheatberries, or some other grains.
Makes a huge difference. Wondering what other liquids to use with grains
I have a mexican themed potluck to go to Sunday. I was pegged to do a salad. I will experiment with something this weekend and report back!Also this weekend: http://nypost.com/2015/05/1…
Good to know. Could be tough when the design and art shows are abundant this weekend
Food vs. art is always a tough battle.Unless the food is harlem soul food. That’s an easy win for me! It may be cliché, but nothing can separate this black man from his fried chicken. 🙂
So I ended up making some horchata, and then boiling quinoa in it. It was pretty cool — I’m not used to grains being sweet and cinnamony! I’m not sure what to incorporate it in, though. Maybe a dessert?In other news, I also made a avocado salad that was basically deconstructed guac. Diced avocado, tomatoes and pears (I wanted jicama to keep w/ the mexican theme, but I could only get pears and the sweetness of the pears actually made the salad perfect) and then the vinaigrette had all the guac flavors and spices I usually use — cumin, coriander, peppers via a pepper-infused oil (plus honey or agave to balance it out), onions, smooshed roasted garlic (which i’m sure you’d omit!) + vinegar to make it a vinaigrette. It makes for a really light salad that tastes and feels heartier due to the flavors in the vinaigrette.
pears. that’s really interesting.
the comment from everyone who tried the salad was “the pears made it!”something crunchy and something sweet are usually winning accents in a salad. the pears killed 2 birds w/ one stone.
Big fan of farro. Easier to cook than rice….you can’t really mess it up if you put too much water, just drain it before you toss it anyways.
Mint and basil sound like an excellent addition of extra freshness to the salad