We too have made the perfectly reasonable mistake of asking for "kwuh-NO-uh" and "KWIN-wah".
But the correct pronunciation of this "pseudocereal" is "KEEN-wah".
Recipe: Lemon Quinoa With Asparagus And Feta (Cookthink)
Recipe: Simple Quinoa (Cookthink)
Quinoa is a seed that, if not harvested, will sprout a leafy vegetable. While the leaves can be eaten, quinoa is primarily grown for the seeds.
A "pseudo cereal" native to the Andes, quinoa is mild and slightly nutty, with a beautiful, pillowy texture that's a little like couscous. It's a farmer-friendly crop that grows easily in many different climates and at high altitudes. It's simple to process and prepare.
Gluten-free, and easy to digest, quinoa has all the goods that grains and seeds are supposed to have (dietary fiber and so on). The real kicker though? Quinoa has the highest protein levels (up to 20%) of all the cereals -- pseudo or otherwise.
Recipe: Lemon Quinoa with Asparagus and Feta (Cookthink)
Recipe: Breakfast Quinoa With Dried Cranberries, Toasted Walnuts And Honey (Cookthink)
Reference: How do you pronounce quinoa? (Cookthink)
Green onions are a milder, versatile alternative to onions. The white parts are great for cooking, but mild enough to work into raw salsas and salads. The green parts work in either, too, but have an almost herbal quality when raw.To prep them, first pull off and discard any soft outer layers. It's best to rinse them after you do this. Cut off the root and and any damaged top green parts and discard them.Now just thinly slice straight across the onion. Thin slices are good to at at the end of cooking, sprinkled over a finished dish, or raw in salads and salsas.Make thicker slices for longer cooking dishes, and when you plan to sauté them first with oil or butter and spices. As with onions, a little salt at the beginning of cooking helps them soften more quickly.For stir-frys and shorter-cooking dishes where the green onion plays a starring role, slice the onions at an angle. The sharp slices look great on the plate (if you're impressed with that sort of thing).
Dom Pérignon was a Benedictine monk who was born in the 17th century and who's widely credited with the invention of Champagne.
An ambitious winemaker, Pérignon devised ways to refine the process of refermentation, the process that gives Champagne its bubbles (and, in the worst of circumstances, can explode). He helped to establish rules about using Pinot Noir grapes, pruning vines, harvesting in cool, damp morning weather, blending grapes before processing them, and the other fine points of Champagne production that are still used today.
Still, many historians now believe that English scientist and physician Christopher Merret "invented" Champagne 30 years before Pérignon, who was also said to have been blind (another point that historians discount).
Myths die hard, however, and many people still believe Pérignon's first taste of sparkling wine inspired the famous quote, "Come quickly, I am drinking the stars!" (Others contest this was an ad slogan dating from the late 19th century.)
Whatever the facts, his namesake Dom Pérignon Champagne, which has been around since 1936, is a favorite of James Bond and one of the world's most exclusive bottles of bubbly. It's produced by the house of Moët & Chandon.
Reference: What is prosecco? (Cookthink)
Recipe: Champagne cocktails (Wine Intro)
Blenheim apricots are prized fruits grown in the Santa Clara Valley region of California. Similar to a Royal apricot, and sometimes called Royals or Royal Blenheims, the Blenheim is small, with a greenish tint that sometimes makes people mistakenly think it isnt ripe.
Blenheims have been grown in the region for more than 100 years but have become harder to find in recent decades, displaced by more early ripening, bigger and heartier apricot varieties. Because they are delicate and hard to ship, you're most likely to find Blenheims at the farmers market. When they are in season, Blenheims are notoriously delicious fresh, and work well for canning, drying, baking or making jams.
Technically a fruit of the Chenopodium family, quinoa packs more protein than any other grain, yielding more than twice the protein of rice and five times more than corn. Quinoa is high in lysine, an amino acid widely deficient among vegetable proteins, and is a good complement to the amino acid structure of most legumes, being naturally high in both methionine and cystine. It has less carbohydrate than any other grain beside corn, and a 6% fat content which gives it a pleasant nutty flavor.
In Peru and Bolivia where most of the quinoa in the world is cultivated and eaten, it is boiled whole, like rice, ground into flour for breads and cakes and simmered as a cereal. The leaves of the plant are eaten as a vegetable. The stalks are burned as fuel, and the water leftover from washing the grain before it is cooked is used for shampoo.
The quinoa plant is extremely hardy, thriving in agricultural environments where corn and wheat normally perish. Cultivated in the U.S., mostly in Colorado, quinoa continues to grow year after year in the Andes despite low rainfall, sub- freezing temperatures, high altitude and poor alkaline soil. Its only drawback is the laborious processing it requires once it is harvested.
The small round seeds of quinoa, which resemble something between sesame and millet, are covered with saponin, a bitter resin, which forms a soapy solution in water. In order for the quinoa to be edible, the saponin must be removed by washing the grain in an alkaline solution. By the time you purchase quinoa the saponin is largely gone, but it is a good idea to wash quinoa well before cooking to insure that no bitterness remains.
Before processing, quinoa seeds are brilliantly colored raspberry red, dark violet, blue black or burnt orange, but once the saponin is removed all quinoa is a uniform pale yellow (with the exception of red quinoa). Each flat disk-shaped seed is framed with a white band around its periphery. During cooking, this band unravels into a tiny sprouted spiral, giving quinoa a beautifully textured appearance and a chewy resiliency.
Quinoa's mild flavor has an affinity to everything from onions and mushrooms to sugar and cinnamon. It is equally good as a side dish, a stuffing or baked into bread and is a good substitute for rice in rice pudding.
Vinegar is basically fermented wine. You know how that forgotten bottle of red takes on a thin, shrill quality when you neglect to drink it in a timely fashion? It's on its way to becoming vinegar. (The French word for vinegar, vinaigre, literally means "sour wine.")
Made since the Gallo-Roman era, vinegar gots its official stamp of approval when vinegarmaking was declared an official occupation in 1580 by Henri IV. It's a pretty simple process: vinegar is made using a bacterial process in which naturally fermented wine is converted into a weak acetic acid that lends vinegar its sour taste.
Vinegar quality depends on the quality of the ingredients from which it is made. There are many types of vinegar, which can be made from wine, spirits, Champagne, rice or honey. It can be infused with tarragon, raspberry and even rose petals.
Reference: The Vinegar Institute's FAQ
Recipe: Quick Pickled Cucumbers and Sweet Onions
Recipe: Balsamic Vinegar Sauce
