A tasty and different meat free recipe from Sainsbury's magazine.
150g quinoa (dry weight)
400g butternut squash, peelef and deseeded
a bunch of spring onions, finely chopped
50g spinach or kale, shredded
60g rolled oats
1 tsp cumin seeds
200g pack feta cheese
1 unwaxed lemon
4 medium eggs, lightly beaten
½ x 28g pack flat leaf parsley, chopped
½ x 31g pack coriander, chopped
Sumac yogurt
1 x 170g pot Greek yogurt
sea salt
1 tsp sumac or dried chilli flakes
To serve
½ cucumber
4 ripe tomatoes
a handful of pitted black olives
salad leaves
Fill and boil a kettle. Weigh the quinoa into a mug, noting the level it comes up to. Rinse under cold water, drain and pour into a pan. Fill the mug to the same level with just-boiled water and add it to the pan, repeat so you have double the volume of water to quinoa. Bring to the boil, turn down the heat, cover and simmer for 10-12 mins until almost all the water has been absorbed abd the little curly grains have been released from each quinoa seed.
Meanwhile, coarsely grate the squash and add to the quinoa for the last 2-3 minutes of cooking. It will steam on top of the quinoa. Drain if needed and return to the heat to dry out. Spread out on a baking tray to cool for 10 mins.
Put spring onions, greens, oats and cumin seeds in a large bowl. Crumble in the feta and add salt, pepper and the zest of the lemon. Mix well. Add the cooled quinoa, squash and eggs and stir in the eggs. Mix well and chill for 20 minutes.
Shape the quinoa into 8 large cakes or more smaller ones and chill for 1 hour.
Meanwhile, peel the cucumber, halve lengthways, deseed and slice. Mix with the tomatoes, olives, juice of half the zested lemon and a drizzle of oil. Season. Arrange salad leaves in a bowl and top with the tomato mixture.
Mix the yogurt with sea salt and the juice of the other lemon half, stir in the sumac.
Heat oil in a frying pan on medium heat and fry the patties for around 4 mins per side until golden brown. Serve with the salad and yogurt.
Notes: I think chopped fresh mint would be good in these. A stronger cheese would go well as well, maybe even a blue cheese. Add a few more cumin seeds or use caraway seeds for a change. Chilli would be a good addition too.
