I am writing from a cabin in the hills of north Wales. I’m looking out over a meadow, and it’s so hot there is a haze hovering just above the long grasses. The air is dense and filled with the smell of the grasslands, which roll down into the valley in front of the cabin. It’s the kind of weather that I dream of all winter. All I want to eat is a cold, fresh salad with a hit of citrus and spikes of chilli, washed down with an ice-cold beer or rosé.
But, leaves won’t quite fill us up after a day walking in the hills and jumping in the sea. So it’s grain salads I’ve been packing into pots and taking to the beach, along with punnets of cherries and strawberries ...
Wholegrains make up a big part of my cooking. Like fruit and veg, I vary them as much as possible to derive the maximum amount of pleasure, interest, flavour and nutrients from my food. At home, I like to cook them in big batches and have them close at hand in my fridge or freezer. These two salads centre around an old favourite – brown rice – and a more unusual grain – freekeh.
Crispy rice salad
This is an amazing salad based on one I ate at Sqirl, an incredible neighbourhood cafe in LA. It is one of those places where you want every single thing on the menu, right down to the drinks. On my last trip to LA, I ate there five times. This is a play on what was my favourite thing on the menu.
This recipe requires you to cook your rice three times, which may seem labour-intensive for a salad, but it’ll create perfect little pops of crunch against the rest of the salad. This is a great way to use up leftover rice too – just skip the first cooking stage. It’s also really good topped with a softly poached egg, or some feta and flatbreads if you are hungry.
Serves 2-4
100g basmati rice (I use brown)
300g spring greens
Zest and juice of 1 unwaxed lemon
Salt and black pepper
3 spring onions
2 tbsp coconut oil
6 medjool dates
For the dressing
Zest and juice of 1 unwaxed lime
1 tbsp sumac (optional)
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp runny honey
1 Cook the rice in a small saucepan of boiling salted water until tender – this will take around 10–15 minutes for white basmati and 20-25 for brown.
2 Meanwhile, pull the spring green leaves from their stems. Shred them with a knife, or tear them into small pieces with your hands. Put the leaves into a bowl, then add the zest and juice of the lemon and a good pinch of salt. Scrunch it in your hands for a minute to break it down a little. Chop the spring onions finely and add them to the bowl.
3 Once the rice is cooked, drain it well. Put a large frying pan on the heat and, when it’s hot, add the rice with no oil and dry-fry for 2 minutes to get rid of any moisture.
4 Remove the rice from the pan, then put the pan back on the heat, add half the coconut oil at a time and fry the rice again in two batches until it starts to turn light brown and really crisp. Drain on kitchen paper and sprinkle with salt.
5 Now, make your dressing. Put the zest and juice of the lime into a screwtop jar with the sumac, if using, and 2 tbsp olive oil. Add the honey and a pinch of salt and pepper. Put on the lid and shake to combine.
6 De-stone and roughly chop the dates, then add them to the greens. Once the rice is almost cool, add it to the spring greens and toss it all in the dressing.
Warm fennel, green olive and herb freekeh
Freekeh is a kind of green wheat, harvested just before it’s ripe. It’s sun-dried and then set on fire, so the chaff burns but the seeds themselves remain. The wheat is then threshed and rubbed, hence its name (which means “rubbed”). It adds texture and substance to a salad, and a nutty, smoky taste, but you can use it for sweet dishes too. In Lebanon, it is sometimes eaten for breakfast in place of porridge.
Here the freekeh is tossed with roasted fennel and leeks and big fat green olives, chopped with green herbs, to make a vibrant dressing. It all comes together to make a hearty, but bright, lunch or supper. It also tastes amazing the next day.
Serves 4
200g freekeh
2 fennel bulbs, trimmed and thinly sliced, leafy tops reserved to garnish
2 leeks, washed and thinly sliced
2 courgettes, sliced
4 garlic cloves, peeled
1 tbsp coriander seeds
Salt and black pepper
Extra virgin olive oil
A splash of herb or white wine vinegar
A small bunch each of mint, coriander and flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
150g green olives, rinsed then pitted
6 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
100g almonds, toasted and chopped
1 fresh red chilli, deseeded and roughly chopped
2 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice, plus more to taste
1 bunch of fresh parsley or basil
1 tbsp pul biber (crushed red pepper flakes) or ½ tsp red chilli flakes
1 Soak the freekeh in cold water for 20 minutes. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4.
2 Put the fennel, leeks, courgette and garlic on a baking tray in one layer if you can – use 2 trays if you have to. Sprinkle over the coriander seeds and a good amount of salt and black pepper, then drizzle with olive oil. Roast in the oven for 20-30 minutes, removing the trays from the oven and carefully shaking them every now and then, until the vegetables are cooked through and crisp around the edges.
3 Sprinkle the vinegar over the vegetables as soon as they come out of the oven, then set aside to cool. When cool, scatter the finely chopped herbs over the top.
4 Drain the soaked freekeh and add to a saucepan with 750ml cold water and ½ tsp salt. Put on a medium heat, cover and bring to a boil, then lower the heat to simmer it gently for about 12 minutes. Cook until tender, but not so long that the grains become mushy. Drain off any extra water, and set aside to cool.
5 Coarsely chop the olives and put them in a bowl along with the olive oil, almonds, chopped fresh chilli, and lemon juice. Stir well and set aside until ready to serve the salad.
6 Combine the roasted veg, freekeh, pul biber and olive mixture in a bowl and mix well. Taste and adjust with salt, lemon juice or olive oil, if needed. Garnish with the fennel tops.
- Anna Jones is a chef, writer and author of A Modern Way to Eat and A Modern Way to Cook (Fourth Estate); annajones.co.uk; @we_are_food
