Google Grain Salad

I picked up a new cookbook the other day, Food 2.0: Secrets from the Chef Who Fed Google. I read cookbooks like other people read novels. I devour them. I enjoy them. But I haven't gotten this excited about a cookbook in a long time.

So far, I've made two of the recipes I've earmarked. But there are many more pages with turned down corners to look forward to.

I'll have to post more later on why I'm so excited about this cookbook. It rocks! But for now, here's a recipe to introduce you to it. This recipe represents the book well. It's healthy, it keeps you going, it has ingredients you're familiar with but probably don't use that often, and they are combined in a really novel and delicious way. See what you think.

The recipe as written calls for wheat berries, kamut grains, millet grains and farro grains. After looking at two different granola-type markets, I could only find the millet and wheat berries. So I used those and combined them with a rice blend I found recently at the Japanese market. It has 6 different kinds of wild rice. The cooking times were all the same, so it worked.

This is a great autumn or holiday salad. It's pretty enough for your Thanksgiving table and would go well as a side with any roasted meats. The candied ginger and cinnamon give it warmth while the kale makes it healthy and tasty. It's rounded out with white balsamic vinegar, but rice wine vinegar or champagne vinegar would work too.

One note, I don't know if the rice plumped up more than the all grain mixture would have, but my version ended up needing more of the flavors to balance out all the rice and grains. So I doubled the ginger, cranberries, and dressing (including cinnamon). Try it and see what you think. It's easy to toss in more of whatever you like most as you assemble the salad. The amounts I'm using here are the way I made it. Cut them back down, if you like.

Also, I was pleasantly surprised by how filling this is. A small bowl powered me through an afternoon and evening right past dinner. This one's going into our fall favorites rotation.

Google Grain Salad

1 cup wheat berries
1/2 cup kamut grains
1/4 cup millet grains
1/4 cup farro grains

or

1 cup wheat berries
1/4 cup millet grains
3/4 cup wild rice blend

added to:

1 head dinosaur kale, coarsely shredded
1/2 cup sliced almonds, toasted
4 tablespoons chopped candied ginger, sliced
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons white balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
salt and pepper

Put a medium-large saucepan of water on to boil. Drop in the grains/rice and cook until tender, about 20 minutes. During the last 2 minutes of cooking, drop the kale into the pot to blanch it. Drain and rinse with cold water to cool. Drain again.

Pour the drained rice/grains into a large serving bowl. Stir in the almonds, ginger, and cranberries.

In a small bowl, whisk together the oil, vinegar, and cinnamon. Pour over the salad and toss together. Season with salt and pepper as you like. Serve room temperature.

Serves 4

Adapted from Food 2.0: Secrets from the Chef Who Fed Google.