Warm Farro Salad with Easter Egg Radishes and Broccoli

When I was a kid, I used to love drinking bright blue Icee’s and eating multicolored Otter Pops.

Now that I’m older, I try to stay away from heavily colored foods as they are generally synthetic and not healthy.

However, colorful food is appetizing isn’t it? Yes, it is!

So, when I was at the market a few weeks ago, I saw these beautiful radishes. I bought them without knowing how I was going to use them.

They are called Easter Egg radishes. If you need some color for your plates, they are a great way to do that.

As far as my palate could tell they tasted the same as regular radishes. But the color is way more vibrant. And even better it’s natural!!!

Bon Appetit versus Food and Wine Magazine

I saw this originally published in Bon Appetit and immediately bookmarked it. If you’ve been following me you know I like Bon Appetit.

I used to read Food and Wine primarily, but they changed their website and I lost all of my saved recipes. Unforgivable. That was after 5+ years of loyal reading.

Ever since then I haven’t been as avid about Food and Wine as I used to be.

To make sure that doesn’t happen again, I also started using Evernote to track my recipes and notes. What do you use to keep track of your recipes?

Thanks to Evernote, I was able to retrieve my favorite farro recipe a few weeks after I saved it.

Color, flavor, and texture make this salad almost a work of art. And who doesn’t like to eat art?

Warm Farro Salad with Easter Egg Radishes Deconstructed

So getting into the salad bit. This dish was originally supposed to be a ‘cracked’ farro salad.

Fancy. Yes, but, it seemed like too much work to mess with my grains. So I left them whole.

Aside from the cracked part, the other appealing aspect of the recipe was that it used raw egg yolk in the dressing!

Raw egg yolks!? Danger danger! But aren’t we all attracted to danger?

If not, I know at least moths are…  you know like that song by Janet Jackson  ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬ Like a moth to a flame, burned by the fire. ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬  Classic….

Hopefully, the egg yolks won’t burn us up.

I don’t know about you but I love foods with raw egg/yolks.

Aioli sauces, Caesar salad, Tiramisu and even Tamago gohan (raw egg with rice) are some examples.

I try to decrease any food poisoning risk by washing the outside shell with soap and water. Do you do anything else ?

That is where the bacteria is. Of all the countless times I’ve used raw eggs I have yet to get sick. Hope to keep it that way.

Some of the other changes I made were:

• Skipped cooking the broccoli garlic marinade
  • instead added more garlic to the dressing, I love garlic.
• Quickly steaming my broccoli for about a minute to soften it. Still crunchy but slightly cooked. I don’t like raw broccoli that much.
• Skipped the sun dried tomatoes since I didn’t have any. Next time I will try fresh and sun dried to see which one is better. I can see both adding another layer of flavor.
• Used fresh oregano and fresh mint, aromatic herbs are always better when fresh!

Other notes –

• Salty Pecorino shavings contrast well with the creamy dressing, so don’t skimp!
• If you like lemon, consider zesting the lemon before juicing it
  • you could add it to the dressing or  as a topping for more lemon flavor

In summary, the dressing is the star of the dish. You can tell everything is more or less raw and bland. That is what makes this so healthy.

The dressing does it’s job bringing everything together. One big family of rich, acidic, and creamy flavors.

Would love to hear your thoughts on this salad. As always please share or comment in you like this post!

Thanks for reading and don’t forget to sign up for my email list for updates!

In case you missed them, here are some of my other farro recipes!

Warm Farro Salad with Arugula, Fennel, Olives, and Prosciutto

Warm Farro Salad with Fresh Herbs, Goat Cheese and Dried Cherries

Farro Salad with Swiss Chard, Olives, and Garlic (Vegan)

Charlie Bird’s Farro Salad version 1.0

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Recipe adapted from Bon Appetit 
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Uncracked Farro Salad with Easter Egg Radishes and Broccoli

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• Prep Time: 20 minutes
• Cook Time: 20 minutes
• Total Time: 40 minutes
• Yield: 4 people 1x
• Category: side
• Cuisine: New American

Ingredients

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• 1/2 cup semi-pearled farro
• 1 dash salt (for the farro)
• 1 large egg yolk
• 4 fillets oil-packed anchovies (drained )
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon fresh oregano
• freshly cracked pepper
• ½ head broccoli (thinly sliced lengthwise ~ 1/4–1/2 in thick)
• ½ small red onion (thinly sliced)
• 1 whole Persian cucumber (sliced ¼ inch thick)
• 1 Fresno chile (thinly sliced)
• 3/4 cup spearmint (torn)
• 1 cup Easter egg radishes (thinly sliced)
• 1/2 cup pecorino romano (shaved with a vegetable peeler)

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Instructions

1. Cook farro according to package directions with a dash of salt.
2. Meanwhile, combine egg yolk, anchovies, lemon juice, vinegar, sugar, mustard, oregano, garlic and 1/4 cup of olive oil.
3. Using a food processor, puree everything up until it resembles a creamy emulsified dressing. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
4. Slice broccoli as thinly as possible then prepare a pot with a little bit of water to steam the broccoli. When the water is hot, steam for approximately 1 minute. Drain immediately.
5. Once farro is cooked drain if necessary and place into a large mixing bowl.
6. Add onion, cucumber, chiles, radishes, mint, and Pecorino. Drizzle with 2-3 Tablespoons of dressing and toss. Season with fresh cracked pepper and add more dressing to taste.
7. Serve with additional mint, radishes and Pecorino on top.

Notes

Dressing and salad can be made 1 day ahead