{"id":15936,"date":"2018-02-25T20:09:51","date_gmt":"2018-02-25T20:09:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/?p=15936"},"modified":"2018-02-25T20:09:51","modified_gmt":"2018-02-25T20:09:51","slug":"freekeh-pilaf-with-chorizo-rainbow-micro-greens-arugula","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/?p=15936","title":{"rendered":"freekeh pilaf with chorizo, rainbow micro greens; arugula"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I love food that is not a part of the Western tradition, but if you know me, or have been hanging around this food blog, you probably know my cooking almost never strays far from the European canon, or some new interpretations of it, by myself or found.\u00a0I always make the excuse that my small kitchen and larder doesn’t have room for the supplies and equipment of another tradition, one that’s seriously removed from the one I work with now.<\/p>\n

But that doesn’t mean I’m happy with the situation.<\/p>\n

Last night I put together\u00a0a very modest meal\u00a0whose inspiration definitely comes from a world beyond Europe,\u00a0although I have to add, just barely beyond. I think I pulled it off pretty well,\u00a0but\u00a0I have to apologize to the entire\u00a0Levantine<\/a> and\u00a0North African<\/a>\u00a0world:\u00a0 I included two pork sausages in the freekeh.\u00a0 It was because they were there, leftovers from 2 different, earlier meals, and this seemed like it might be the only opportunity I’d have to use them; it was probably the best opportunity, in any case. As someone\u00a0who is not now, and never has been concerned with observing either\u00a0Jewish dietary laws<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0Islamic dietary laws<\/a>,\u00a0the combination\u00a0seemed, well, ..’meet<\/em>‘. Does it help my cause if I add\u00a0that the very spicey sausage, that I used, a local chorizo, used\u00a0looked, smelled, and tasted\u00a0very much like lamb, which would be something that was often a part of a serving of freekeh where the dish originated?<\/p>\n

I used\u00a0a recipe for\u00a0Freekeh pilaf<\/a>, from Yotam Ottolenghi’s beautiful site, Ottolenghi Limited.<\/a>\u00a0Of course there was no suggestion there that any kind of sausage might be included in the dish, so I\u00a0took full responsibility for the transgression.<\/p>\n

And yet!<\/p>\n

I learned later that Ottolenghi himself has published recipes which include pork, even chorizo specifically<\/a>; and then I really<\/em> began to appreciate his attitude toward good food: “In 2006, Ottolenghi began writing a weekly column for\u00a0The Guardian\u00a0titled ‘The New Vegetarian,’ though he himself is not a\u00a0vegetarian\u00a0and has sometimes noted where a vegetable-centric recipe would pair well with a particular cut of meat.” – that from his Wikipedia entry<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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I also arranged a spray of delicious local arugula on the plate, although it too was not a part of the original recipe, although it\u00a0would not be out of order.<\/p>\n

A final note: In the continuing\u00a0dinner series, this meal was also completely ‘one-arm-in-a-sling-friendly’,\u00a0after I had cut the arugula leaves on Barry’s plate into one or two-inch segments.<\/p>\n