Turkish Wheat Surprise
I found some short grain Turkish whole wheat berries in the grains pantry and decided to pressure cook it as a side for a soup dinner. The directions on the bag said to boil it in 4x water for about 20 minutes and drain — which sounded completely ludicrous to me. Who would want to LOSE flavor by draining away extra moisture?
So I rolled the dice and went for 10 minutes and a natural release method — but used 2x coconut milk instead of the 4x water. The short grain berries plumped up nicely with a creamy smooth flavor and perfect texture to compliment the soup. Reminded me of bulgar, but these were whole berries and not parboiled in advance so they didn’t go soft in texture, but the pressure cooker did the hard work. The rest of the ingredients were random from what needed used up in the fridge and freezer.
- 250g Turkish short grain whole wheat berries
- 500ml coconut milk
- 100ml water
- 1/4 tsp Himalayan pink salt
- 1/2 yellow onion sliced
- 1/4 red onion sliced
- 1 tbsp avacado oil
- 1 cup diced fermented turnips and green tomatoes
- 1 cup flavored black beans (from a seasoned dish)
- 2 tbsp diced cilantro
- Grated zest from one orange
- 2 cloves worth of diced roasted garlic
- Homemade red curry paste (optional)
Rinse the wheat berries with water and drain. Combine with coconut milk, water and salt — then seal and heat on high to pressurize, then low to maintain for 10 minutes. Natural release the pressure instead of releasing the lock.
While cooking, sauté onions medium low in avacado oil, adding the roasted garlic, diced fermented veggies and black beans a couple minutes before the onions are done browning just to warm.
Combine wheat with the sauté, remove all from heat and mix in the cilantro, orange zest and red curry paste to taste. Serve immediately.