Freekeh Salad
Green wheat with a smoky, chewy bite, dressed while still warm so the grain drinks the lemon rather than sitting in it.
- Prep
- 20m
- Cook
- 30m
- Waiting
- 20m
- Total
- 1h 10m
- Serves
- 4
- Effort
- Moderate
Method
Tap a step number to mark it done. Tap an ingredient once for got it, twice for need it.
| 200 g | Simmer until the grains are tender but still resist the tooth, 25 minutes 30m Drain hard in a sieve. Freekeh holds water in its creases and a wet salad is a dull one. | Toss the warm freekeh with the dressing and spread on a tray to cool 25m Spread thin. A hot heap keeps steaming itself and the grains go soft and claggy. | Fold the herbs and pomegranate through the cooled, dressed grain 5m Herbs last and cold. Stirred into hot freekeh they wilt to slime within a minute. | |
| 700 ml | ||||
| 1 | ||||
| 1 tsp | ||||
| 3 tbsp | Whisk together 3m | |||
| 5 tbsp | ||||
| 1 tbsp | ||||
| 1 tsp | ||||
| 1 small clove | ||||
| 3/4 tsp | ||||
| 60 g | Toast in a dry pan until they smell of biscuit, then chop roughly 5m | |||
| a large handful | ||||
| a small handful | ||||
| 3 | ||||
| 100 g | ||||
-
Simmer until the grains are tender but still resist the tooth, 25 minutes
30m- cracked freekeh 200 g
- water 700 ml
- bay leaf 1
- fine salt 1 tsp
Drain hard in a sieve. Freekeh holds water in its creases and a wet salad is a dull one.
-
Whisk together
3m- lemon juice 3 tbsp
- extra virgin olive oil 5 tbsp
- pomegranate molasses 1 tbsp
- ground cumin 1 tsp
- garlic 1 small clove
- fine salt 3/4 tsp
-
Toss the warm freekeh with the dressing and spread on a tray to cool
25m- from 1 Simmer until the grains are tender but still resist the tooth, 25 minutes
- from 2 Whisk together
Spread thin. A hot heap keeps steaming itself and the grains go soft and claggy.
-
Toast in a dry pan until they smell of biscuit, then chop roughly
5m- blanched almonds 60 g
-
Fold the herbs and pomegranate through the cooled, dressed grain
5m- from 3 Toss the warm freekeh with the dressing and spread on a tray to cool
- from 4 Toast in a dry pan until they smell of biscuit, then chop roughly
- flat-leaf parsley a large handful
- mint a small handful
- spring onions 3
- pomegranate seeds 100 g
Herbs last and cold. Stirred into hot freekeh they wilt to slime within a minute.
Dressing warm grain
A grain straight off the heat has open, gelatinised starch at its surface and is still losing steam. Acid and oil applied at that moment are drawn in as the grain cools and contracts. Wait until it is cold and the starch has retrograded into a firmer, more closed structure, and the dressing simply coats the outside and pools in the bowl.
Freekeh’s smokiness is not added — the wheat is harvested green and the fields are burned, so the moist grain survives while the chaff chars.
Notes
- Cracked freekeh, not whole, unless you want to add half an hour.
- Taste for salt once cold. Chilled food always needs more than warm food.
- Keeps two days undressed by the herbs; add those just before serving.