Orzo Salad by The Roaming Kitchen
Orzo Salad by The Roaming Kitchen
Cristina Sciarra is a writer and cook living in Brooklyn with her fiancé, a Frenchman she met in Spain.
Her website, The Roaming Kitchen, is home to culinary yarns, food photography, and original recipes that celebrate seasonal, high-quality ingredients. She serves on the board of Slow Food NYC, an organization working to promote food that is "good, clean, and fair", something that hit home with us and we found really interesting. If you want to know more, please click here!
Follow Cristina's cooking journey through her Instagram and website!
Since it’s mid July, we thought we’d share her delicious Orzo salad with you, perfect for a warm summer’s day lunch!
Makes 1 quart pasta salad. Serves 4-6. The dressing makes 3/4 cup. Good in the refrigerator for up to 2 days. Serve chilled or at room temperature.
Ingredients:
1/2 scant cup (60 grams) hazelnuts
1/2 cup (115 grams) red wine vinegar
1/2 cup (70 grams) golden raisins
1 cup (170 grams) orzo
the juice of 1 lime (25 grams)
2 tablespoons (25 grams) rice wine vinegar
2 tablespoons (25 grams) champagne vinegar
kosher salt
1/4 cup (50 grams) sesame oil
2 tablespoons (25 grams) quality olive oil, plus more for coating the orzo
6 scallions
a small handful of chives (8 grams)
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 ounces fresh goat cheese
1/4 teaspoon flake sea salt
Directions:
Heat the oven to 350F (176C). Scatter the hazelnuts across a baking sheet; bake the nuts for 10 minutes. Out of the oven, allow them to cool and then remove the skins. You may leave the nuts whole or roughly chop them. Set the hazelnuts aside.
Meanwhile, bring the red wine vinegar plus 1/2 cup of water to a healthy simmer on the range. Add the raisins, and then turn the heat down to low. Cover the pot or saucepan, and cook the raisins for 10 minutes. Then, turn off the heat, and allow the raisins to sit in the vinegar solution for an additional 20 minutes. Drain the raisins and set them aside.
Bring a pot of water to a rolling boil; add enough kosher salt to make the water taste like the sea. Add the orzo to the pot, and cook until al dente. (For me, this was consistently 2 minutes less than the bag recommended.) Drain the orzo, and stir in a bit of olive oil, just so that the pasta does not stick. Allow the orzo to cool for 20-30 minutes.
Make the dressing: add the lime juice, the rice wine vinegar, and the champagne vinegar to a small bowl. Whisk in a little pinch of kosher salt. Add the sesame oil and the 2 tablespoons olive oil. Whisk the dressing to emulsify, and then set it aside.
Clean and then thinly slice the whites and light greens of the scallions. Mince the chives.
In a large bowl, stir the red pepper flakes into the orzo. Add the hazelnuts, the raisins, the scallions, and the chives. Fold in the dressing. (If you are eating the salad fresh, I think 1/2 cup of dressing is sufficient. I usually save the remaining 1/4 cup for just before serving, especially if I make the salad ahead of time. But add the dressing bit by bit, and taste according to your preferences.) Stir in the sea salt. Using a fork, break up and crumble the goat cheese into the bowl, and lightly fold it into the salad.
Bon Appetit!
