Millet Pilaf with Ricotta Salad

This is great and healthy dish!

I followed the recipe for millet pilaf from Detox - The Process of Cleansing and Restoration (Sara Rose) but substituted several ingredients.Millet is a whole grain, very rich in fiber. Millet is rich in B vitamins, especially niacin, B6 and folic acid, calcium, iron, potassium, magnesium and zinc. Millet contains no gluten.

What you'll need:

1 1/4 cups vegetable stock (caldo de vegetais Knorr)

1 onion, chopped

3 garlic cloves, crushed

cinnamon powder

2 bay leaves

175 g (6 oz) millet 

1 can of kidney beans

black pepper

salt

cilantro, finely chopped

fresh mint, finely chopped

For the salad:
- 1 tomatoe
- 1 cucumber
- 2 radishes
- ricotta cheese
- lemon juice
- salt & pepper

How to do it:

Sauté the onion and garlic in a bit of olive oil until soft. Add the spices and bay leaves and cook over moderate heat for 2 mins. 

Remove the bay leaves and discard. Add the millet and the vegetable stock, bring to a boil, reduce the heat and let simmer for 15 - 20 mins, making sure it does not stick and adding more water if necessary. 

Add the beans and cook for 1 or 2 more mins. Season with black pepper and stir in the parsley and mint.

To prepare the salad, cut the vegetables in pieces, season with the lemon juice, olive oil, salt & pepper and sprinkle with the ricotta cheese.

Konafa with Cheese

This is a Middle Eastern dessert made with a dough called konafa which looks like soft whitish uncooked shredded wheat or vermicelli. It can be bought in Middle Eastern or international food stores. I bought mine frozen.

I followed a recipe from the book Tamarind & Saffron: Favorite Recipes from the Middle East (Claudia Roden) but used only ricotta cheese instead of 1/2 ricotta, 1/2 mozzarella. Ricotta has less fat and it makes a lighter dessert that I prefer. 

What you'll need:

1. for the konafa

- 250 g (1/2 lb) of konafa pastry

- 125 g (4 oz) unsalted butter

- 50 g pistachio nuts, chopped

2. for the syrup

- 250 g (1/2 lb) sugar

- 150 ml (1/4 pint) water

- juice from 1/2 lemon

- 1 tbsp orange-blossom water

- 1 tbsp rose water

3. for the filling

- 500 g unsalted ricotta cheese

How to do it:

To prepare the sugar, bring the water, lemon juice and sugar to a boil and let simmer for 10 min. Add the orange blossom and rose waters and cook for 30 more seconds. Cool down and put in the refrigerator.

Melt the butter. Put the konafa pastry in a large bowl, add the melted butter and work the mixture thoroughly with your fingers to make sure that the strands are coated in butter and don't stick together (at least most of them!). 

Spread half the pastry at the bottom of a tray. Spread the ricotta cheese over it evenly and cover with the rest of the pastry, flattening it with your hand. Bake in oven preheated to 180 C (350 F) for 45 mins or until the top is a light golden brown.

Remove from the oven and pour the cold syrup over it. Sprinkle with the crushed pistachios and serve hot or warm.

Arroz de Polvo (octopus rice)

This is a famous recipe by my father who, I must say, is a specialist! It's actually very easy, I have tried it for the first time today and it is delicious. Since I don't have a pressure cooker like my parents, it takes longer to cook the octopus. It took me 1 1/2 h to get it really soft like it should be. In a pressure cooker it takes only 30 min.

What you will need:  

- 1 octopus (fresh or frozen)

- 1 onion (medium to large)

- 2 garlic cloves

-  piri-piri (Portuguese dry pepper; if not available use chili peppers)

- salt to season

- basmati rice

How to do it:

First, cook the octopus in water and salt. Cook for 1 1/2 h in a regular pan or 30 min in a pressure cooker.

Remove the octopus and save the cooking water. The octopus must be tender! Cut it into small pieces. In the same pan fry the garlic and the chopped onion until soft. Add the cooking water (measure how many cups you have of it), some salt, the piri-piri and the octopus in pieces. Add an amount of rice which is 1/2 the amount of cooking water you added. Let it cook until done and sprinkle with cilantro.