Salad dinner at a HOT summer night

It was a typical mid-summer evening at New York. On my way back home from work... the street was so humid and hot, and the subway station... that was the worst you can imagine. Once I arrived at my apartment, I was already so exhausted and had no more energy to cook, also no more appetite to eat any dinner.

The following salad is the perfect dinner for such an evening. Delicious, nutritious, simple, light and bright.


Arugula Salad with Quinoa
A light meal for a hot summer day

(Yield: 2-3 servings / Cooking time: 30 minutes)

Ingredients:
+ arugula (as much as you want)
+ 1 cup red quinoa*
+ 2 1/2 cups water
+ one tomato
+ one pear (I used an asian pear because I like the crispy texture)
+ parmigiano-reggiano
+ one or two king oyster mushroom
+ vegetable oil
+ 50ml olive oil
+ 25ml sherry vinegar
+ salt and pepper

* Quinoa is one of unusual plant foods which can be a complete protein source as it has a balanced set of essential amino acids. A perfect grain substitute for vegetarians. Red quinoa has more fiber and also crunchy texture.



Procedures:
1. Wash arugula with cold water and dry it. Salad spinner can dry greens without bruise. The reason to dry your green for salad: if the green is dried, vinaigrette (dressing) can stick to the green and add more flavor.

2. Cooking quinoa: clean your quinoa with cold water and drain the water. Boil two and a half cup of water in a pot. When the water is rapidly boiling, salt the water with about a teaspoon of salt and pour a cup of quinoa. Lower the heat to medium and cook about 20 minutes covered with a lid. As quinoa cooks, a little white spiral tail forms around the grain. Cool your quinoa to room temprature (or at least warm).

Raw quinoa	Cooked quinoa

3. While the quinoa is cooking, slice a king oyster mushroom as thin as you can. In a hot pan, drizzle the vegetable oil and cook the slice or mushrooms. Sprinkle salt on the top right before you cook the mushroom. If you salt the mushroom slices too early, moisture from the mushroom will ooze out and the mushrooms are wet before going into hot oiled pan. Wet mushroom will not be cooked as crisp as we want.


4.When the slices are cooked, they become almost like mushroom chips. Drain excess oil by placing the cooked mushroom on top of paper towel.


5. Dice your tomato into 1cm cube, and mix with cooled quinoa from #2.




6. Wash the pear and slice it thinly.


7. Make your sherry vinegar vinegrette by mixing well together 50ml olive oil and 25ml sherry vinegar. Season with salt and pepper.
8. In a salad bowl, toss your arugula and tomato+quinoa mixture with vinegrette, and mix with mushroom chips and sliced pears. Shave parmigiano-reggiano with a vegetable peeler on top.


Enjoy your salad!