Chard with garlic, quinoa, tomatoes and parsley

Autumn

There are several varieties of chard, but it’s rainbow chard I love the most. The leaves tend to be thick and waxy and grow like dark-green, billowy clouds stitched to multicoloured stems. Cooked like cabbage or kale, it’s delicious simply boiled, trickled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt and pepper. It has an intensely satisfying, silk-like texture, but it must be cooked until tender, not just blanched for a few seconds. The bigger the plant gets, the fuller the stems become. Sometimes you can cook the stems as a separate vegetable – they have a slightly different flavour to the leaves themselves. Chard plays a central role in this warm quinoa salad and has a particular affinity with sweet tomatoes, cumin and garlic.

Serves 4

Ingredients

100g (3½oz) quinoa
1 large bunch of rainbow chard
500g (1lb 2oz) ripe tomatoes, cut into bite-sized pieces
4 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
2 tsp cumin seeds, coarsely crushed
2 tsp unrefined caster sugar
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 handful of flat-leaf parsley, leaves picked and roughly chopped
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

Put the quinoa in a large pan and cover with plenty of salted water – you’ll need about three times as much water as quinoa. Place the pan over a medium–high heat and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer the quinoa for about 10–12 minutes, or until the grains are tender. Drain well and set aside to cool.

Rinse the chard then strip the leaves from their stalks. Slice the stalks into 1cm (1⁄2in) pieces and roughly chop the leaves.

Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil and add the sliced stalks. Cook for 1–2 minutes, then add the leaves and bring back to the simmer. Simmer for a further 2 minutes, until the stalks and leaves are tender, then drain and use the back of a spoon to press the excess water out of the leaves.

Place the tomatoes in a bowl. Heat the olive oil in a small pan and, when it’s hot, add the garlic and cumin and allow to sizzle for 1–2 minutes. Then, just as the garlic is colouring, pour the fragrant oil over the tomatoes. Add the sugar, vinegar, parsley and plenty of salt and pepper.

Tumble the tomatoes through the dressing. Now add the cooled quinoa and all the chard and use your hands to turn it all together gently. Transfer the salad onto a plate and serve.

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