Quinoa tasting

Last year, Lundulph and I tried quinoa for the very first time in our lives and liked it and have slowly started taking it into our hearts.

According to Wikipedia, the colour depends on the cultivar in question and we were wondering if there is any difference in flavour.

Our local supermarkets only carry white or mixed quinoa, but luckily Lundulph makes regular trips to central London and was able to get hold of a packet of red quinoa.

So when I made Thai Red Curry yesterday, I decided to do a taste test of the two quinoas.

The white quinoa is a little bigger and was significantly bigger after boiling, otherwise the cooking instructions were the same for both - rinse, then boil for 10 minutes in double the volume of liquid.

We came to the conclusion that the white quinoa is softer and more floury tasting. The red quinoa is crunchier and had a more nutty flavour.

Looking at the saucepans in which I cooked the quinoas, the one from the red quinoa was easier to clean, the red quinoa was barely sticky, whereas the white quinoa behaved very much like sticky rice.

In Sweden I found there is also black quinoa, sadly I couldn't buy it to take home, as it came in a 5 kg packet. Maybe next time.

So the next step is to see if our local farm shop sells red quinoa and maybe even black quinoa.

And by the way, apparently 2013 is the International Year of Quinoa.