WATCH: Cooking Quinoa – A Concise 60 Second Demo

Celebrated super food quinoa is the perfect alternative to things like rice and pasta but it’s sometimes tricky to get just right.

In this great 60-second video by Susan Jane White, author of The Extra Virgin Cookbook, she demonstrates how to make the perfect quinoa.

And to help you on your quinoa journey, here’s a great recipe to try out utilizing the exotic flavours of both cumin and paprika.

Smoked Paprika and Cumin Quinoa

Ingredients

• 1 cup quinoa
• 1 1/2 cups hot chicken stock
• or boiling water
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 2–3 eggs
• generous splash of extra
• virgin olive oil
• a few turns of the black
• pepper mill
• bunch of rocket, dill,
• chives, parsley or
• coriander

Serves 2–3

Method:

1. Rinse the quinoa in a sieve under running cold water for a good 30 seconds (some grains have a bitter coating).
2. Knock the wet quinoa into a small saucepan. (Bits will stick to the sieve. No matter.)
3. Add the hot chicken stock or boiling water to the quinoa, sprinkle in the spices and simmer on a medium heat for 15 minutes with a lid on. The kitchen will smell incredible. You can tell quinoa is cooked once the tail of the seed comes away from the grain. A nifty trick is to remove the pot from the heat after 12 minutes, drain all the water and cover the pot with a tightly sealed lid for another 5 minutes. This way, the quinoa won’t stick to the base or burn. Any residual heat left in the pot should fluff the grains up nicely.
4. To poach eggs, make sure you have the freshest eggs possible, left at room temperature, otherwise the eggs may become very disobedient.
5. Using a small heavy-based saucepan, bring 8cm of water to a simmer.
6. Swirl the water in a circular motion like a whirlpool and slide the raw egg into the middle. Many chefs swear that adding cider vinegar to the water will make the egg white behave. Your call.
7. Watch carefully, and remove with a slotted spoon after 60–90 seconds to drain the water off your plump little treasure. Don’t worry if it looks like half the egg white is floating in the saucepan. That always happens to me and yet the eggs turn out beautifully.
8. To serve, add a good lick of extra virgin olive oil and a few turns of the pepper mill to the quinoa.
9. Chop up any rocket or herbs you can resuscitate from the fridge and stir them through.
10. Divide between 2 or 3 bowls and crown with a perfectly poached egg. Poke the egg yolk a little so its lava oozes out.

Susan Jane White’s cookbook has been a number one bestseller since it hit shelves last month and is already on its 3^rd print run, proving we’re all becoming ever more health conscious with a huge appetite out there for sugar-free, wheat-free and dairy-free recipes. (Video directed and produced by Saskia Vermeulen)