"Chickpea-Quinoa Pilaf." Try saying that ten times fast.
My bestie David is doing this fitness thing called Snatched in Six Weeks, so he's literally counting and logging every calorie, balancing carbs, protein, fat, etc. You know the drill. So I had to find something super-healthy to make for him, and this seemed like a good choice.When I saw the whole tablespoon of coriander seeds in the ingredients, I thought, This must be a typo, and I went on a google hunt for evidence of that. Instead, I found accounts of people either enjoying this recipe as written or thinking it was blah, not flavorful enough. Wha? With all those coriander seeds?
I brought out the old mortar and pestle to crush the seeds, and it was very exciting to smell the smells coming from them as they were ground down. But it didn't allay my fears that this big pile of fragrant, sandy matter would be distasteful in the finished dish. Still, I carried on with the recipe, verbatim.
I'm very happy to report that the recipe is pretty darn perfect. What I thought would be overwhelming was just right. The flavors are great - that tablespoon of tomato paste really delivers. And the quinoa-chickpea combination is solid. We really liked this.
The only thing I will say is that it took a lot longer for the water to be absorbed than I&T suggest. They ballpark 18 minutes, and mine went about twice that long. Maybe when I lowered the heat "to very low," it was too insanely low. But who cares. Nobody fainted waiting for it, and the finished product was excellent.
SFO: 10 (as a side)
(David thought that if this were served specifically as a side dish accompanying something more substantial, any meat eater would be happy to eat it. But if it were the main course, he'd lower the score, just for "what's quinoa?" and "no there there"ness. I totally agree.)
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