Sprout & Pea

I love farro for its tex­ture, specif­i­cally the nut­ti­ness it adds to a dish, but I don’t love it for its price tag. It’s also not exactly gluten-​​free, so it has become an ingre­di­ent that I enjoy once in a blue moon when the mood really strikes. Well, the other night the mood struck. As I was walk­ing through the isles of my local mar­ket with arugula in my bas­ket, crav­ing some­thing refresh­ing for din­ner, I hap­pened to notice a bag of farro on the shelf. It’s rare that my local mar­ket has this delec­table grain in stock, so after a bit of brain churn­ing, and a lit­tle drool­ing over fresh herbs that I spot­ted in a nearby isle, I tossed the farro into my basket.

This arugula that I had orig­i­nally picked up for the next day’s lunch was about to meet it’s new friends farro, thyme, chive and cherry tomato, and it was going to like it– and so was I (I hoped). When I got home, I sliced up my fresh cherry toma­toes and chopped up my herbs and let them all mar­i­nate together in a bowl of olive oil with a lit­tle salt and pep­per while I cooked the farro.

By the time the farro fin­ished cook­ing, the toma­toes had absorbed some nice fla­vor so I tossed the two together, added some arugula and sherry vine­gar, and topped with grated Pecorino Romano. The fresh sum­mer herbs and the spice of the arugula com­bined beau­ti­fully with the nut­ti­ness of the farro and Pecorino, and the sherry vine­gar gave it just the kick that it needed. After mak­ing this dish, I may get the urge to indulge in farro a lit­tle bit more often. Here’s how to make it…

1 cup farro
small pot of water to boil farro
1 cup cherry toma­toes sliced in half
1 cup baby arugula
1/​2 cup extra vir­gin olive oil
1 tbs sherry vine­gar
1/​8 cup chopped fresh thyme
1/​8 cup chopped fresh chives
1/​8 cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese
Salt and Pep­per to taste.

In a medium bowl, com­bine cherry toma­toes, olive oil, thyme, chives and a sprin­kle of salt in pep­per. Mix together and let sit while you cook the farro. To cook the farro, bring a small pot of water to boil and add farro. Let sim­mer for about 15 min­utes or until farro is cooked, but still nutty in tex­ture. Drain farro in a strainer and rinse with cool water to bring to room tem­per­a­ture. In a medium bowl, mix the tomato, herb and olive oil mix­ture into the farro, add arugula, fol­lowed by sherry vine­gar and mix every­thing together. Top with Pecorino Romano and salt and pep­per to taste.