| CATEGORY |
CUISINE |
TAG |
YIELD |
| Vegetables |
Arab |
Vegetables |
1 |
Servings |
INGREDIENTS
INSTRUCTIONS
1997
Nutritionally, both the leaves and grain of amaranth are of unusual
value. Tasting like spinach with a touch of horseradish, the raw
greens have substantially more calcium than beet greens, kale, chard,
and spinach, and more iron than all these leaf vegetables and collards
as well. Because the gigantic amaranth yields four times more green
matter than comparably light-and-carbon-dioxide-efficient plants,
researchers have declared it an outstanding source of leaf protein
concentrates that can be used as fodder or as human food. You can eat
the stems and leaves of young stem tips together, but it's best to
cook the more mature stems alone for 8 to 10 minutes (they taste a
little like artichokes). To retain the most iron and vitamin C in the
leaves, steam them for 10 minutes. You can then serve them with butter
or mixed with peanut butter you've blended with water. If you like,
add the raw leaves to soup broth or stir-fry them in heated oil in
which you've browned a garlic clove, then stir-fry in some ground
pork, add boiling water, and simmer a while. You can also chop and
stir-fry the larger shoots with bean sprouts and other vegetables,
adding a little soy sauce and water during the last 3 to 5 minutes of
cooking. Or try incorporating the leaves in vegetable curries as
people do in India and Ceylon. For more good eating, combine a pound
of cooked, drained fresh amaranth with 1 pound of ricotta cheese, 1
beaten egg, and 1/4 cup grated Parmesan, and bake at 350'F for 30
minutes. Or try raw amaranth chopped and mixed with chopped onion,
slightly beaten eggs, and a little salt, then fried as small pancakes
in safflower oil. This green also tastes great when it's cooked and
then added to seasoned tomato sauce. If you like, you can mix the
cooked greens in a blender with minced garlic, parsley, basil,
oregano, tomato sauce, and some tomato paste, then use this mixture as
one of the layers in a lasagna that also features broad whole wheat
noodles and a blend of ricotta cheese, salt, pepper, and parsley.
Source: "Unusual Vegetables: Something New for This Year's Garden" by
the editors of Organic Gardening and Farming Posted to MM-Recipes
Digest V4 #070 by Linda Place <placel@worldnet.att.net> on Mar 10,
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