Spelt berries with greens
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Cook time: 
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Serves: 4
 
Ingredients
  • 2 cups of spelt grains
  • 4 cups of water
  • Salt, turmeric and pepper
  • Mushrooms, garlic and parsley, lemon juice
  • 1 leek (the white part and part of the green one, too) finely cut
  • 3 kale leaves
  • ½ zucchini
  • 1 carrot
  • Sunflower and pumpkin seeds to garnish
  • Extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon of quality soy sauce
Instructions
  1. Cook the spelt with the water, counting 35 minutes once it boils and reducing heat to the minimum, with the lid on the pot. Strain and set aside.
  2. In a pan, sauté the mushrooms (drizzling them with lemon juice so they do not turn dark) with the garlic and parsley until they are done. Set aside.
  3. Grate the carrot, wet it with a good dash of lemon so it does not rust and set aside
  4. Cut the zucchini in little sticks or dices and set aside.
  5. In a large iron casserole, put 3 spoonfuls of oil to heat, and sauté the leek. Add a pinch of salt, a cofee spoon of turmeric and freshly-ground black pepper and sauté three more minutes.
  6. Take out the kale stems and discard. Cut the leaves in 1 cm pieces approx. Put into the sauté and add some water or broth so it does not dry.
  7. Add the mushrooms and the cooked spelt, and stir to integrate the flavors.
  8. Add the tablespoon of soy sauce and the zucchini and keep on stirring for one minute.
  9. Add the grated carrot and stir until it is well distributed but hardly cooked, so it remains crunchy.
  10. Put off the heat, sprinkle some sunflower and pumpkin seeds and a good dash of oil and plate.
Culinary Tips
If you soak the spelt the night before it will ease cooking, but it is not essential.

Turmeric is fat-soluble, and thus it is important to pour it at the beginning, with the oil in the sautée. Ground black pepper enhances the turmeric's beneficial effects about 20 times.

The dish admits any other vegetable combination (peas, beans...) and other mushrooms (boletus edulis, shiitake, maitake...) according to your creativity, exactly the same as you would do with rice.
Recipe by The Quotidian Cook at https://www.thequotidiancook.com/en/spelt-berries-with-greens/