Yesterday when I was grocery shopping I came across a new seed, Durra (Sorghum bicolor), which is sold as an alternative to rice.
The particular package I found contained a mix between Durra and red rice. Since I enjoy trying new food ingredients I bought a package to try.
I cooked it according to instructions, which said 25 minutes. I tasted it and it felt like it was still undercooked, so I left it on for a bit longer. To my surprise it didn’t seem to take up any water or get any softer as time passed, so I figured it probably is meant to be a bit harder then rice. The taste was OK, nothing overwhelming though.
On the package it said to be a replacement option to rice, and to some extent I do agree, but I didn’t really find it as good as rice (or bulgur which I often use instead of rice) when served with stew, in this case chicken stew. Durra just seem to dry, and it doesn’t really suck up any of the sauce.
The package also suggested it to be suitable for use in salads. This I can believe, although I have not tried. What I’m thinking here is to add a little into the salad bowl, kind of like you’d add beans or chickpeas. Or instead of rice in a chicken salad. I think it would work in this scenario because you’d probably add less to a salad then you’d put on your plate together with the stew, or other hot dish.
I will give it another go though, but next time I’ll treat it a little more as I would with dried beans or chickpeas, meaning I’ll let them soak in cold water a while before actually cooking them to see if they get any more moist and soft. If I remember to I’ll post about how that goes later on when I’ve tried.
I know I have lacked in posting here, but I’ve sort of been out of inspiration in the kitchen. Feels as I do the same dishes over and over again. Nothing wrong with that, they are well tested and tasteful, just can’t blog about doing what I’ve already done…
Though I wanna share one small tip about making minced meat sauce. I suppose that most of you do as I were taught to do when I started cooking. That is start with browning the minced meat and then creating the sauce with that as base.
Recently I learnt that there’s an option, that works very well, even better in some ways. The result is a fuller body of the sauce, without adding thickeners. Well suited for large quantities as well.
Start with making the sauce, based on tomatoes or whatever you prefer. When that has been boiled together a few minutes, start adding the minced meat little by little. Remember to stir well while the minced meat gets cooked into the sauce.
When all is stirred in, let it cook for a little while and taste, adding more spices if needed.
The huge advantage of this comes forward when you try and make sauce on a couple kilograms of minced meat and does not have a huge frying pan, or doesn’t want to start frying in one pan and then adding it to a big casserole 
I first tried it when I helped my sister cook for her birthday, we made three kinds of pies, one of them a minced meat pie.
My boyfriend came asking me today if I had looked around the garage lately, he said there was something for me there.
I hadn’t, so we went looking, and there they were, small yellow squash 
Another few weeks and they should be ready for harvest I think.
I’ll post a picture when I get one taken, I’m currently at work.
…is a great little snack in between the meals, well with the cream option it might not be that great for your figure though
Anyway I’m mainly just happy that my garden holds strawberries, among other things, for me to go pick as they ripe I picked me a handful of them red berries to eat with a small amount raw sugar and milk today while thinking about what to cook for dinner (haven’t gotten any wiser about dinner though).
Me and my boyfriend spent a week at Sunny Beach in Bulgaria. Or at least the hotel was in that area, we spent most of the time in the old Nesebar.
We booked the trip as an unspecified trip, meaning we didn’t know where we’d be staying until we arrived in Bourgas, all we knew was that it would be somewhere along the Bourgas Cost. Neither of us really wanted to end up in Sunny Beach, mainly because we’re not party animals For a party animal Sunny Beach is a perfect choice though. Granted the beach itself was great, and we did spend some time there, swimming in the Black Sea
As this is a blog about food and wine, I won’t talk so much about the trip, in terms of what we did, but more about the food and wine in Bulgaria. Read the rest of this entry »
