Regular quinoa is sold in most grocery stores and can be cooked like rice, in about 15 minutes. Red quinoa, cooked the same way, has a deeper, nuttier flavor, which author Robin Asbell used in The New Whole Grains Cookbook to create a pretty crust for the Peruvian snack chicharrones. Dried and baked on shrimp with a coating of flour and egg, the grain becomes delectably crunchy.
You also can find quinoa flour, quinoa pasta and quinoa flakes, which make a quick hot cereal.
"For me, quinoa tastes really clean," says Shauna James Ahern, the author of the book Gluten-Free Girl and the eponymous blog that inspired it (glutenfreegirl.blog spot.com).
The recipes on her blog include a fruit-crumble topping with quinoa flakes; red quinoa topped with butternut squash, tofu and red peppers; a summery quinoa salad with smoked salmon and capers; and a pizza crust built with quinoa, tapioca and sweet rice flours.
For an everyday side dish, she prepares red quinoa with onions, garlic and thyme, finished with champagne vinaigrette and sunflower seeds. "It's hard for me to believe that I once had never heard of it, because it's one of my favorite staple foods now," Ahern says.
It's also a staple for John Cunningham, consumer research manager for the Baltimore-based Vegetarian Resource Group, who follows a vegan diet. Quinoa "is not what one would particularly think of as the protein part of the meal," he said. "It's a great way to sneak protein into your diet."
It's also handy for fortifying vegetables as a stuffing. In the introduction to a recipe for quinoa-stuffed peppers in her book, Vegetarian Suppers From Deborah Madison's Kitchen, Deborah Madison writes that "seasoned with cilantro, chiles and cumin and studded with corn and spinach, the quinoa is so compellingly good that you might just want to dive in and forget the peppers altogether."
The complete dish - with pretty peppers and braised red onions - was divine when we tested it, and the quinoa stuffing was indeed good enough to stand alone.
Though most quinoa products these days come ready to use, many experts recommend rinsing quinoa seeds before cooking with them. They can be coated with saponin, a natural detergent that clings to the plant's cuticle and can leave a bitter taste. (Drain the small seeds in a tightly woven sieve to keep them from escaping.)
Quinoa flour can offer a gluten-free baking alternative to wheat flour, though many experts don't advise substituting it alone.
