Farro is one of those grains that I normally pass over in the bulk section, opting instead for the old stand-by’s like brown rice, quinoa or Israeli cous-cous. How foolish I have been. And then one day, there was this huge bag of Farro at Costco tempting me with promises of being nutty, chewy and high in fiber. All of which turned out to be true….
When cooking side dishes involving grains, I tend to rummage through the pantry to find items to cook them with. In this case, I found half a bag of sun-dried tomatoes (which were leftover from the last batch of sun-dried tomato pesto) and a jar of marinated artichokes.
Near my many canisters of grains I have a small booklet that I picked up at Whole Foods that has a cheat sheet on cooking ratios. For farro, the ratio is 2 units of liquid to 1 unit of grains. Generally, 1 cup of any grain will yield 4 side dish servings. Scale the recipe below up or down as appropriate.
The twist here is that I did not use a stock for the cooking liquid….I turned to beer. My go-to for grains is usually low-sodium chicken stock, but I had a bottle of Blue Moon Valencia Grove Amber in my hand and thought the citrus flavors and big beer flavor would be more fun than stock. And it was.
So farro is now in the rotation. And that jumbo bag is nearly gone. The next time you see it in the store, give it a try, I think you’ll like it as well.
- 1 cup Farro
- 1 Tablespoon Butter
- 1 Tablespoon Crushed Garlic
- 1 Bottle Beer (brewed with fruit)
- 1.5 cups Water
- 6 Sun-Dried Tomatoes
- 1/2 cup Artichokes Roughly Chopped
- 1/4 Cup Chopped Parsley
- 1 Tablespoon White Wine Vinegar
- 2 Tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil
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Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium low. Add the farro and gently stir until a toasted, nutty smell develops
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Add the garlic and cook for about 1 minute
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Pour one botttle of beer into a large measuring cup, add enough water to bring it up to 2 cups. Add this to the saucepan, bring to a boil, cover and then reduce to low. Simmer for about 30 minutes
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While the farro is cooking, place the sun-dried tomatoes in a glass dish and cover with 1 cup of boiling water. Cover and give them about 15 miutes to rehydrate. Remove, cool and then chop
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After the farro finishes cooking, allow it to cool and mix in the sun-dried tomatoes, artichokes, parsley, vinegar and olive oil