Saffron quinoa with brassicas, avocado and pomegranate

Here comes one of my favourite salads for the winter season. Flavours and veggies that reminds me of candlelit dinners, cosy mornings and Christmas gatherings - all tossed together in to this recipe!

If you ask me every festive buffet requires a semi raw salad - a salad where at least most of the components are raw - great thing as that will add lots of texture and freshness which goes very well with basically anything. Cook the quinoa prior to serving and massage/shave/slice/deseed the rest of the components (preferably put the brassica i ice cold water to get them really crispy!)- then just toss it all together just before serving!

Saffron quinoa with brassica, avocado and pomegranate

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

3 dl / 1.2 cups white quinoa

0.25 grams saffron, ground

100 gram kale (you might want to use black kale instead of kale if you’re pairing this one with my pumpkin tray recipe from the previous post)

50 gram red cabbage

1 fennel

1 avocado, sliced

1 pomegranate, deseeded

1 dl / 0.4 cups mixed seeds and nuts, toasted

1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

flakey salt

How to

Cook the quinoa according to instructions on the packaging, together with the saffron.

Cut away the thick bottom steam of the kale, tear the leafs in to smaller pieces. Since they’ll the added raw to the salad you want the pieces to be quite small. Massage with olive oil and a pinch of salt until silky.

Shred the red cabbage thinly using a mandoline, a vegetable peeler or a sharp knife. Trim the fennel bulbs, then shred thinly on the width using a mandoline/vegetable peeler/sharp knife. Put cabbage and fennel in ice cold water for 20 minutes - this will make them extra crispy!

Toss together the cooked saffron quinoa, kale, cabbage, avocado, pomegranate and seeds/nuts!

* This is a recipe from “Två Dagar” distributed by Göteborgs-Posten. Photo by Stefan Edetoft