Quinoa salad with dried Iranian lime

This is a wonderful, hearty salad loaded with lots of grains and herbs. It can serve as a light meal for lunch or dinner. I love Iranian limes, also called Omani or Persian limes. These small limes are available online or in Middle Eastern grocery stores. The limes are dark purple-black and have an aromatic, tart flavour that I love. What stands out is the wonderful aroma that will permeate the house, and you wish you would stay forever. Here is more on these limes.

For this salad, I substituted Bhutanese red rice with wild rice. That was what I had at home, and I did not want to run an errand to a store for a single item today. In addition, I used just the soft dried piths of the limes; yes, getting them out is a laborious task but worth it. The salad is beautifully textured with the different grains, and the sweet potatoes add a delicate sweetness rounded off by the dried lime, spices and herbs.

This cookbook was the first one in my Ottolenghi collection; I now have all the others. It brought beautiful flavours to my table and opened my mind to great recipes. Most of the recipes are simple, but each dish is fabulous. I have cooked more than half the recipes from this cookbook. I do need to post from here more often.

For more fabulous recipes from this cookbook, click here.

Ingredients:

2 medium sweet potatoes (about 1 lb total)

4 tablespoons olive oil

Salt and black pepper

1/4 cup mixed basmati and wild rice

1/4 cup quinoa

4 garlic cloves, peeled and very thinly sliced

1 tablespoon shredded sage leaves

1 tablespoons roughly chopped fresh oregano leaves

3 tablespoons Iranian lime, inside flesh removed and deseeded

6 tablespoons shredded fresh mint

4 spring onions, green part only, thinly sliced, plus extra to garnish

1 teaspoon lemon juice

1/4 lb feta, broken into chunks

Preheat the oven to 200C/400F.

Peel the sweet potatoes and cut them roughly into 1/2-inch dice. Spread them on an oven tray lined with greaseproof paper, drizzle with half the oil, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast for 20-25 minutes, until tender and starting to get charred in spots.

Meanwhile, cook the rice as per the instructions on the box.

Put the quinoa in a pan with lots of boiling water and simmer for 10 minutes. Drain into a fine sieve and leave to dry. Put the cooked and dry (but still warm) rice and quinoa in a large mixing bowl.

Heat the remaining oil in a small frying pan, then fry the garlic for 30 seconds or until it turns light golden. Add the sage and oregano, and fry, stirring, for about a minute - make sure the herbs and garlic don't burn.

Tip the pan's contents over the rice and quinoa, then stir in the roasted sweet potato and its oil. Add the dried lime, mint, spring onion, lemon juice, feta, salt, and pepper, toss together gently, taking care not to mush up the sweet potato and feta. Taste and adjust the seasoning.

Serve warmish or at room temperature, garnished with spring onions.