Category Archives: French Fridays with Dorie
ffwd: wheat berry and tuna salad
I think I remember making a tuna salad with lentils for French Fridays with Dorie around this time last year. This time around, the week’s selection is a composed salad featuring a wheat berry and tuna salad. Tuna = Independence Day must be a Dorista theme.
As best I can tell, wheat berries and farro are interchangeable, though not exactly the same thing. I couldn’t discern the actual difference from my reading, other than farro coming from Italy and typically being more expensive. Maybe it’s the actual varietal of the wheat. That said, I spied quite affordable “10-minute farro” for sale at Trader Joe’s. Dorie mentioned a quick-cooking version being available in France, so I decided to try out my find instead of continuing to scout for wheat berries. Also, I had tried out a different farro salad recipe last week (which didn’t come out so well, so I won’t bother to share), and the farro took FOREVER to cook. In the middle of our current heat wave, the 10-minute cook version was perfect.
This is ideal hot weather food. The only cooked parts are the grains and the hard-boiled eggs. I cooked both of these the night before when the air was slightly cooler. I also mixed up the mustardy dressing while I waited.
The farro is tossed with the dressing, the tuna, and a variety of colorful vegetables. I went with what I had: a stalk of fennel (plus the fronds) instead of celery, some radishes (instead of an apple), scallions (instead of onion), and the called for green pepper. The salad had a festive confetti look.
I do have to say, I don’t understand chunk tuna. I usually use solid white or albacore. I was out of tuna, so I just bought what the recipe called for. When I opened the can, it reminded me of cat food. There weren’t any distinguishable chunks, just some mushy tuna. Maybe it was the brand I bought. It certainly wasn’t like what I was expecting. Fortunately, it tasted fine in the salad.
This composed salad starts with a bed of salad greens tossed with some olive oil. I planted 24 heads of lettuce in my vegetable garden, and they all seem to be ready at once. Right now, anything with salad greens is a good plan for me. The greens are topped with the wheat berry and tnna salad. Finally, halved cherry tomatoes, diced avocado, and hard-boiled eggs garnish the top.
This was a gorgeous summer lunch. I made individual platings for the two of us, but, for a bigger crowd, I can see serving this on a platter for everyone to dig in and take what they like. As with so many of the recipes we try in this group, this is another springboard for an infinite stream of similar salads. Just choose your favorite grain salad and toppings and you have a beautiful meal.
To see what other Doristas thought of this recipe, check out their posts here. We don’t post the recipes, but you can find it in Dorie Greenspan’s book Around My French Table.
For those of you enjoying a long holiday weekend to celebrate the 4th of July, I hope you are having fun. If it’s hot where you are, I hope you are staying cool and well-hydrated. For everyone else, Happy Weekend!
ffwd: socca from vieux nice
I’ve never been to Nice, or the South of France, for that matter, so I had no point of comparison for this week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe: Socca, which is a chickpea pancake. In France, this street food made by vendors stationed on the sidewalk. At my house, we had it as a starter to dinner.
This recipe introduced me to a new ingredient, chickpea (also called garbanzo) flour which is ground up chickpeas. It has a vegetal aroma quite different from wheat flour. The batter is simple to mix up: garbanzo flour, water, olive oil, chopped rosemary, salt and pepper. This is done in advance so the batter can rest. Dorie says that improves the end result.
The preparation was interesting. The pancake bakes in a very hot oven. The pan preheats at the same time. Once everything is hot, you pour oil into the pan and return it to the oven to heat up before pouring in the batter. It’s essentially oven-fried, though finished under the broiler to blacken the surface slightly.
It was a little challenging to transfer to a serving plate
To eat, we tore the piping hot pancake into pieces and smeared them with tapenade and goat cheese. It was tasty, though unusual. I cooked half the batter to make one medium pancake to try tonight and plan to cook the other half with tomorrow’s lunch.
I still have the rest of the bag of chickpea flour leftover, so I will probably try this again. I’m less sure about it plain, but I have lots of Mediterranean condiments to experiment with for toppings.
I was also intrigued by the falafel recipe that came on the bag. I love falafel but I’ve always been put off making them at home because I am uncomfortable deep-frying. The recipe on the bag of flour only calls for a few tablespoons of oil to cook them, so I might be trying that out. Any other suggestions?
We don’t post the recipes, but you can find it in Dorie Greenspan’s book Around My French Table. To see what other Doristas thought of socca, check out their posts here.
Voila, Socca!
A Plateful of Happiness 