Festive Pomegranate Quinoa Salad

Every year the United Way Committee at my office hosts a potluck fundraiser lunch. The pomegranate quinoa salad I contributed this year was a big hit and I promised to share the recipe, so here it is.  

Pomegranate Quinoa Salad

• 2 cups of quinoa
• 4 cups of water
• 1 preserved lemon*
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 2 stalks of celery finely chopped
• 1/2 cup of olive oil
• 1/3 cup of sherry vinegar
• seeds from one large pomegranate
• 1 bunch of cilantro finely chopped
• salt to taste

Rinse quinoa well.  Combine water and quinoa in pot and bring to boil, turn temperature down, cover and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from stove and place in bowl.  Add olive oil, sherry vinegar and garlic to hot quinoa. Rinse the preserved lemon, remove pulp, and finely chop.  Add to quinoa mixture and stir. Set aside to cool to room temperature.  Finely chop celery, and place on top of room temperature quinoa along with pomegranate seeds and cilantro.  Gently stir just before serving. Serve at room temperature. 

*Because preserved lemons are hard to find, I make my own.  They are remarkable easy to make and an ingredient that adds an interesting freshness to a dish.  An earlier entry details the process.  

Roasted Root Vegetables

This past winter, Ian and Allan and the girls came up north to snow shoe for the day. I didn't have time to drive into town for groceries and was able to build this dish from basics in the fridge and pantry.  It is based on a recipe from "Plenty: Vibrant Vegetable Recipes from London's Ottolenghi" by Yotam Ottolenghi. The recipe has evolved since then to it's current state and is a favourite with friends and family. I try to make enough to ensure there are lots of left overs, because it stores very well and is better the next day as the favours blend.  

• 9 shallots, peeled,  I have substituted small onions and added garlic when I was out of shallots
• 3 large carrots, cut into 1 1/2" pieces,
• 3 large parsnips, peeled and quartered and cut into 3" strips
• 2 cups of sweet potatoes cut into 1" cubes
• 1 large celery root, cut into large cubes
• 1 small can of cooked chick peas
• 1 cup of vegetable broth
• olive oil
• 2 cinnamon stick
• 3 bay leaves 
• fresh ground pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon of cumin, smoked hot paprika, and chili flakes
• 1 tablespoon of chopped  fresh ginger
• 3 or 4 star anise depending on size
• kosher salt
• 1/2 cup of mixed dried fruit such as apricots, pitted prunes, and apples, cut into bite size pieces
• 1 preserved lemon
• 1 tablespoon harrissa
• crunchy sea salt
• 2 tablespoons coarsely chopped fresh cilantro

Place shallots, carrots, parsnips and celery root in a large tagine and toss with 3 tablespoons of olive oil and salt and pepper to taste.  Add cinnamon sticks, bay leaves,  star anise and spices. Toss again. Cover and bake for 30 minutes at 350F.

Remove from oven and add sweet potatoes,  vegetable broth,  chick peas, dried fruit  and ginger.  Cook for another 30 minutes.  Remove from oven, add chopped preserve lemon rind, and harrissa and mix well.  Sprinkle with coarse salt and chopped cilantro.

I often serve this over quinoa, made with preserved lemons and dried currents, particularly when there are vegetarians in the crowd.

My experimentation with Moroccan cooking began when my brother Jordan gave me a tagine for Christmas a few years ago.  I tried the few recipes that came with the tagine and was hooked and so began my search for recipes that I could cook in this fabulous new vessel.    I started with lamb tagines, and then vegetable tagines and only recently, after my friend Ruth made me a fabulous dinner of chicken with preserved lemons and olives when I visited her in Nice this past Christmas, did I start to experiment with this most traditional of Mediterranean dishes.  

I made this dish recently for a pre-wedding event I hosted, in a tagine and have also used a slow cooker on week nights when entertaining.  Ruth made her dish in a large enamelled French cast iron pot with a tight lid.   

Moroccan Chicken with Preserved Lemons and Olives

serves 6                                                                               Preheat oven to 350F

• 6 chicken thighs, excess fat removed
• kosher salt
• 3 tablespoons of olive oil
• 5 cups of yellow onions, coarsely sliced
• 2 tablespoons of dried coriander
• 2 teaspoons of ground pepper
• 2 teaspoons of finely chopped ginger
• 1 teaspoon of saffron threads
• 1/2 teaspoon of ground turmeric
• 3 bay leaves
• 1/2 cups of chicken stock
• 6 quarters of preserved lemon rind  (note below)
• 1/4 cup of pitted cracked green olives and 1/4cup of dried black olives
• I 400 gram can of crushed tomatoes
• 1 bunch of fresh cilantro

Salt chicken legs and brown in 1/2 the olive oil.  Set aside. Drain off excess chicken fat and add the remaining olive oil.  Add onions to pan and sauté until a golden colour, add a pinch of salt and the spices and stir for about a minute.

Chop stems of cilantro and add to onion mixture, 

Put the onion mixture in bottom of tagine, pour tomatoes  over onions, and place chicken on top.  Add chicken stock,  and tuck in bay leaves. 

Place lid on tagine and place water in cap at top of tagline.  Place in cold oven and then turn oven on to 180 C 350 F and cook for 40 minutes.

Remove from oven and add lemon and olives. Cover and place back in the oven, then turn off oven and let cool until ready to serve, a minimum of 20 minutes.  Chop fresh cilantro and sprinkle on top before serving.   

Serve with couscous

Preserved Lemons

I have had difficulty finding preserved lemons in all but the most expensive specialty stores, and consequently began preserving lemons myself.  Something that sounds exotic and unapproachable is remarkably easy to prepare with ingredients that are available at every grocery store.   I began by using predominately salt, until Ruth showed me the lemons from a friends garden she had preserved last fall using mostly olive oil.   When I returned home, I immediately started exploring options for preserving lemons and now have settled on a method that combines salt, lemon juice and sometimes spices, topped up with olive oil.  

I put about a half inch of kosher salt in the bottom of a sterilized large mouthed one quart bottle.  After cutting the lemons almost through from top to bottom in quarters, while still leaving attached at bottom, pack each lemon with salt and put in bottle.  Push the lemons down adding thin layers of salt between the lemons.  When the bottle is full, force a more few lemon quarters into the bottle.  Then add fresh squeezed lemon juice to fill all the voids in the bottle.  Top up with lemon juice once the juice has settled.   Put the lid on the jar and turn the bottle upside down a few times, then loosen the lid a bit and leave to ferment.  Every day for a week, turn the bottle over a few times.  Don't forget to tighten the lid before turning and loosen again to allow the gases from fermentation to escape.  If necessary top up with lemon juice to keep the bottle full.  The bottle may ooze a bit for the first week or two as the lemons ferment.  The lemons will be ready in a month. Top up with olive oil, to seal the bottle, to prevent the top layer of lemons from oxidizing.  If you are keeping the lemons more than a few months, storing in a dark place will preserve the colour.  The preserved lemons keep upwards of a year.

I often put a cinnamon stick, some cloves, pepper corns and a few star anise in the bottle with the lemons at the beginning of the process.  My other favourite combination is bay leaves, rosemary and thyme.