Sprouting

For sure everyone already ate soya sprouts at least in a chinese restaurant. Actually you can sprout virtually any seed (some might be more or less suitable for eating of course) and it´s a fast and easy way of having some sort of fresh "vegetable" at the table. Besides if you like growing things, and also if you have kids at home I think this is quite an interesting little "project".

You can use the resulting sprouts in many different dishes. Either raw in salads to give it a bit of crunch, in soups, or as a side dish sautéed like I suggest below.

You don´t need much for sprouting. First gather some seeds. In natural foods stores you can find for sale a huge assortment of seeds or also pre-made mixtures specially for sprouting. Then you can use a normal glass jar and just cover it with some muslin, so that you can wash the seeds/sprouts and drain the water easily.

You can find a lot of information in the web about it, as well as different methods, containers, types of seeds and so on. You can check here, here and here for more detailed information and set up.

In this case I am using a mixture of fenugreek, green linseeds and radish. They make a nice combination of sweet and spicy. Usually 1 tablespoon of seeds results in 4 tablespoons of sprouts, of course it always depends on the kind of seed you are using and for how long you let them grow. I left the seeds soaking in water overnight (8 to 12h is ok), then you just have to wash/rinse them everyday with water (I do it twice a day, morning and evening for example), place the jar upside down to drain the water and in about 3 to 4 days you get sprouts like this ones:

I like to let them grow until I get the first small leaves, but you can do it for less or more time according to your taste (some do taste slightly different in different growth stages).

After you "harvest" the sprouts you can keep them in the fridge for some days until use.

In this case I used them to make a nice side dish (main dish for me actually) of brown and wild rice:


Brown and wild rice with sprouts and ginger


Ingredients


1 cup of brown/wild rice mixture
1 cup of fresh mixed sprouts
1 garlic clove, minced
fresh grated ginger to taste (I used 2 teaspoons)
2 tablespoons of butter
salt, pepper
soya sauce to taste


Cook the brown rice in enough water with salt (depending on the type of rice it can take more or less time), and drain after cooking.
Brown the garlic and the ginger in the butter. When slightly golden add the sprouts. Mixed them for a couple of minutes until soften. Add the rice and let fry slightly. Season with salt, pepper and soya sauce to taste.

Arancini

When I was in Palermo some weeks ago, I tried this wonderful fennel and orange risotto that I didn´t rest until I tried to replicate it at home. It turned out really good, but I was not fast enough for taking pictures... so I will leave the recipe sometime later when I do it again.

Anyways, there were some leftovers. Honestly risotto is the type of thing that doesn´t taste the same reheated, at least to me. So I remembered of another typical Sicilian recipe which is the Arancini. These are fried risotto balls with either some cheese or meat inside. Here I show the simplest way of making them, which I got inspiration from in this nice book I bought while in Sicily.

Warning: close your eyes if you are on a diet...

Arancini with cheese


adapted from the book "Treasures of Sicilian cuisine"

Ingredients:

Leftovers of risotto (in this case around 4 tablespoons)
1 egg
breadcrumbs
cheese in little cubes (to taste)
oil to fry

Mix the risotto with the beaten egg. If you see that the mixture is too liquid add some breadcrumbs to thicken a bit. For each arancini use more or less 1 tablespoon of the mixture. Shape it into a ball and in the middle add 1 or 2 cubes of cheese. Round it up, and pass it through the breadcrumbs until it is well covered. Fry it in hot oil until golden.

Enjoy!