10 January 2016

Salad plate with teff, hummus and vegetables


Recently I bought a curious small tub of teff grain. It just caught my eye at the health food store, its benefits were praised and I love grains, so along it came. I have never knowingly eaten teff before. Please do share your experiences, if you already have cooked with it, but here’s a small summary of what it is, if it’s unknown to you.

Teff is an ancient gluten-free grain, the grains being very tiny in size. It’s an important ingredient especially in Ethiopian and Eritrean cooking and it can grow in difficult conditions that would be too challenging for other grains. A whole field of teff can be sown with only a handful of grain. Apart from these practical features, it is also a very healthy grain. It has high Calcium and protein contents, as well as high levels of carbohydrates and fiber and many more useful nutrients. The flavour is wonderfully nutty.


I will certainly be using teff in the future in all kinds of baking and cooking, but the first time I tried it, I wanted to have it in a fairly pure form, just as grains. I would say that quinoa was yesterday and teff is today!

I used these components for my dish:

Teff
Hummus
Cherry tomatoes roasted
Carrots roasted
Hazelnut crunch and almond flakes toasted
Mixed salad leaves


Here is how I prepared the different components:

I cooked the teff grains in water for about 15 minutes, using the double of volume of water as the grain. Then I added a pinch of salt and vegetable stock powder, and left it off heat under the lid for further 5 minutes. Check your teff packet for cooking instructions in case they vary.

The tomatoes and carrots I roasted in the oven brushed with olive oil, but I could imagine that they would be fine raw here as well.

The homemade hummus had already been prepared a couple of days before and was waiting to be used up.

Then I just toasted the nuts and almond flakes briefly on a dry pan.

I found this to be quite a nice vegan dish. Of course many of the components can be replaced by other vegetables for example, but I really enjoy such plates of food.




I want to share this salad with the No croutons required cooking challenge. The January edition is hosted by Lisa from Lisa's Kitchen and co-hosted by Jacqueline from Tinned Tomatoes.


Have a good Sunday!

Your VegHog

4 comments:

  1. Teff is so pricey in the UK, its used a lot in Ethiopian cooking. I've used it in the past for Injera bread, but this recipe is interesting and good to have it in its natural form.

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    1. Oh yes, I completely forgot to mention that obviously I used the whole tub for this, which wasn't as cheap as other grains, but it's quite nice, and I'm intrigued to bake with it too.

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  2. Oh my! I adore teff and combined here with hummus and roasted vegetables, that sounds wonderful. I don't eat teff as often as I would like. I like it just on its own for breakfast, but I recently made teff cakes that were pretty good. Thanks for sharing with NCR.

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    1. Thank you Lisa! I also like the idea of a teff breakfast and might have to experiment that way as well. It was my pleasure as always with the NCR. :)

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