How to Cook Quinoa

Quinoa is a small, round seed that can be eaten like rice or couscous. It’s full of protein and fiber, and it even comes in a range of different colours!

Being packed with protein and fiber makes quinoa very filling, so a small cupful (200-250ml) of dry quinoa makes easily enough for four people. And if you’re already familiar with cooking rice (link), cooking quinoa is pretty straightforward.

Start by washing the quinoa.  You can add equal amounts of quinoa and water to your saucepan, mix, and drain off the water or, my preferred method, put the quinoa in a metal sieve, and rinse it under running water.

Put the quinoa in a saucepan and add water. Quinoa needs a lot of water – three times as much water as quinoa! Use a measuring jug, or just the same cup you used to measure your quinoa. However, for really good quinoa, I would recommend cooking it in stock rather than plain water – it makes a huge different to both the texture and flavour!

Put the lid on your saucepan and bring to the boil. Once it’s reached boiling point, you can turn the pan down so that it’s just gently boiling. It then needs to be boiled for about twenty minutes, or until it’s soft and has absorbed all the water. Remember to turn the pan off once the water’s all gone!

 

Quinoa isn’t nearly as common as rice or pasta, but it’s a great way to add variety to your mealtimes!

How to Chop a Carrot – into sticks

If you haven’t already, please make sure you’re familiar with basic knife safety before starting this tutorial. (link)

We’ve already done a few How to Chop a Carrot tutorials, but carrots really do feature in almost every meal I cook, so bear with me! They’re also a great vegetable to practice on, because they’re inexpensive and can be eaten both raw and cooked. In today’s tutorial we’ll be making carrot sticks.

The first few steps are the same as we’ve learned so far. Wash your carrot with clean water (and a scrubbing brush if you want), but try and leave the skin on to preserve the mineral content.

Check your carrots over for any discolouration or blemishes that you want to cut out. Just like before, cut them out using a small ‘V’ shape.

Chop off the top and bottom (or top and tail) of your carrots.

Next, cut the carrot into chunks the same length as the sticks you want to end up with. I usually aim for about 4-5cm or so (a little under 2 inches).

 

 

 

 

With each chunk, start by chopping it in half. This gives you a flat surface to rest the carrot on, which makes the rest of the chopping safer. There are a couple of different ways to go from here.

 

 

 

 

The way I always used to make carrot sticks is to just keep halving until you end up with sticks that are about half a centimetre (¼ inch) at the fat end.

Recently I’ve found, however, that it’s more efficient to cut carrot sticks using a kind of grid pattern. Slice each chunk into four lengthwise, then cut each thick slice into sticks. You can even stack your slices to make chopping faster!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not only are sticks great finger food, you can also boil them like slices (link). However, my favourite way to cook carrot sticks is in a stir-fry, which is the recipe we’re working towards this month!

How to Chop Broccoli – into florets

If you haven’t already, please make sure you’re familiar with basic knife safety before starting this tutorial. (link)

I think a lot of people have a bit of a love/hate relationship with green vegetables, but broccoli is a firm favourite of mine. Broccoli is an interesting vegetable because it’s actually the flowers of the broccoli plant!

If you can, try not to wash your broccoli. A lot of water can get trapped between the flowers, which can make it rather soggy to eat.

Broccoli is sold in ‘heads’, and the individual ‘branches’ are called florets (see the picture below). In this tutorial I’ll teach you how to cut and cook the florets.

The grey circle indicates one floret

For cutting, it’s easiest to work from the outside in. Hold the broccoli so that the floret you want is as close as possible to the chopping board. (I like to hold the stalk with my left hand as I cut with my right.) Slide your knife between the floret and the stalk, and chop downwards.

Carry on chopping, working from the outside in, until you have enough broccoli. (Depending on the size of the florets, I usually allow 1-3 florets per person.) The very top of the broccoli can be a little tricky because the florets become less clearly defined. Just try and cut it into pieces about the same size as the florets you’ve already chopped.

 

 

 

 

It’s a really common mistake for people to overcook broccoli; one of the reasons is that the stalk cooks more slowly than the flowers. To combat this, place the broccoli florets upside down and cut about halfway down the stem. Try and make sure all the pieces of stem are smaller than about ½cm (quarter of an inch).

 

 

Broccoli only takes about five minutes to cook, whether you’re boiling, microwaving, or steaming. (If you’re boiling or steaming, place the florets with the stalks at the bottom.) Once cooked, broccoli turns a slightly brighter colour than when it’s raw. It also looks a little shinier! And just like carrots and potatoes, cooked broccoli is soft enough to easily poke a fork into.

How to Chop a Carrot – into slices

Happy New Year, and a special welcome to anyone joining How to Chop a Carrot in the wake of New Year’s resolutions!

If you haven’t already, please make sure you’re familiar with basic knife safety before starting this tutorial. (link)

Carrots were almost always part of a hot meal when I was growing up. I’ve already made a tutorial for carrot chunks (here), but slices of carrot cook much quicker!

First, take a carrot. You don’t need to peel it (a lot of the minerals are right underneath the skin), but you might want to wash it. Use clean water to wash off things like soil, and if you want to be a bit more thorough you can scrub you carrots with a clean washing-up brush.

Next, check your carrots over for any discolouration or blemishes. These aren’t dangerous, they just don’t taste or look very good. If they are on the end of the carrot, you can just cut the end off. If they’re in the middle of the carrot, first place the carrot flat on a chopping board or plate with the blemish facing upwards. Then make a small cut either side of the blemish, making a small ‘V’ (see picture).

We also don’t want to eat the very top or bottom of the carrot. (These are often known as the top and tail – to top and tail your carrots means to chop the top and bottom off.) Leave the top of the carrot on for now – it’s useful to hold on to while you’re cutting slices.

 

Next cut slices about half a centimetre (¼ inch) thick, working up the carrot from the tail. Don’t worry if your slices vary a little in size.

Carrot slices can be eaten raw in salads, but I usually eat them boiled. Place your carrot slices in a saucepan and add enough water to just about cover them. Heat on the hob until they start to boil, then turn down the heat a little and keep them boiling gently for about 20 minutes. Once cooked, carrots should be soft enough to easily poke a fork into. Just try not to boil them to death – you’ll lose all those lovely vitamins.