3 Ways to Cook Whole Grains - The Right Way!

today i want to share with you three ways to cook whole grains the right way because depending on what grain you choose to cook you need to pick the correct method so that your whole grains will come out perfect every time [Music] hi sweet friends i'm mary and welcome to mary's nest where i teach traditional cooking skills for making nutrient dense foods like bone broth ferment sourdough and more so if you enjoy learning about those things consider subscribing to my channel and don't forget to click on the little notification bell below that'll let you know every time i upload a new video well there are three ways that you can cook grains and depending on which grain you're cooking determines which method you pick the first method is called the pasta method and the second method is called the absorption method and the third method is called the pilof method but to be fair the pilof method which we're calling the third method is actually sort of an offshoot of the absorption method because the pilaf method usually goes hand in hand with the absorption method so if we wanted to be thoroughly precise we would say that the first method is the pasta method the second method is the absorption method and the third method is the pilaf absorption method in a previous video i went over all the different types of whole grains that you can store in your pantry and many of you asked me after you saw that video mary can you show us how to cook all these different types of grains so today that's exactly what i want to do i want to talk about all the different grains and the different methods that are best for cooking each one of them and if you didn't see that previous video where i went over all the different types of grains you can store in your pantry i'll be sure to put it in the link to it in the description below and in the i cards above now i think the first question to answer before we even get into cooking grains and the different methods for cooking them is why are we cooking whole grains often when we think of whole grains we think of having them ground into flour and then used for baking but you can cook any whole grain whole you don't need to grind it into flour and when you cook it whole you can use it as a side dish in place of something like rice or pasta whole grains can also be used in soups or they can be chilled and tossed with some olive oil and vinegar and put on top of a salad there's a lot of things that you can do with whole grains once they've been cooked in their whole form now i think there are some whole grains we are kind of used to eating in their whole form barley is one you may often see beef and barley soup or you may even see barley cooked as a side dish in place of rice things like that are more common but other whole grains that you can cook include any of the modern day wheat berries as well as the ancient grains you can cook emmer which is also known as faro you can cook ein corn you can cook a spelt you can cook millet you can cook quinoa you can cook bulgur all of these different wheats can be cooked and served as a dish unto themselves now let's talk about the three methods the first method is the pasta method and as the name implies you're going to cook your whole grain in a lot of water just like you would pasta and the pasta method is best for cooking firm grains which would include things like barley any of your modern day wheat berries any of your ancient grains like ein corn or emmer which is also known as faro or spelt anything like that is best cooked in a lot of boiling water hence the name the pasta method now what i've got here in terms of my firm grains are barley and this is just a medium barley it is a pearled barley from the grocery store and then i've got some wheat berries these are modern day wheat berries and then i've gotten it doesn't matter they can be red wheat white wheat whatever you have and then here i've got some farro also known as emmer and this is an ancient grain and this makes a wonderful side dish and it's actually becoming more common here in the united states but it's very popular cooked in italy specifically in the tuscan region and this is great cooked and just tossed with some butter and salt and served as a side dish or if you cook it and chill it it's wonderful in the summer tossed with olive oil and vinegar and put on top of a salad now firm grains are all cooked in the same way this pasta method so i thought i would pick one and i'm going to pick the faro and we're going to go ahead and cook this now often all whole grains will come with different instructions on the back on how to cook that particular whole grain and sometimes the instructions will produce a nice quality end product but sometimes and i know i've heard this from a number of you it just didn't seem to come out right so what i've found is if you develop a strategy where you know which grain falls into which of these three methods of cooking and you always cook it like that chances are it's really going to come out quite perfect now what i find interesting here is on the back of this package although farro is a firm grain it's recommended to cook this according to the absorption method but what i have found through experience is that cooking firm grains with the absorption method often yields something that can be overly chewy or overly mushy and it can sometimes be frustrating to the new cook or or the cook who's new to cooking whole grains but cooking faro or any whole grain for that matter that's a firm grain according to the pasta method which is actually what's recommended by cooks illustrated and if you're familiar with cooks illustrated they have many cookbooks and many tv shows on how to cook and they've done a lot of experimentation and they have found that cooking faro with the pasta method yields the perfect consistency not too chewy and not too mushy so what i have found that works very well is to take about eight cups of water and don't worry this is not an exact science if you're measuring in liters uh two to eight cups would be a little less than two liters so you can certainly use two liters of water but about eight cups is a good amount of water four one cup of our firm whole grain so what i'm gonna do now that i've got my eight cups of water in there i'm gonna turn my heat up to high and i'm gonna bring this up to a boil and i'm gonna go ahead and i'm gonna measure out my one cup of farro well i've got my water up to a nice rolling boil i'm going to go ahead and put in a teaspoon of salt if you're on a salt restricted diet you can definitely leave that out but i do find it adds a nice flavor to the finished cooked grain product alrighty and now we're going to go ahead and add in our one cup of whole grain faro then we're going to give that a little stir and we're going to let that come back up to a boil and then we're going to boil this for 15 minutes and at 15 minutes we'll check it and we'll see how the consistency is just like you'd check pasta if you were cooking pasta it may take up to 20 minutes to get to the correct texture but we'll check it at 15. now each of the firm whole grains that are cooked in the pasta method have different times for how long they need to be cooked faro can generally cook up in about 20 minutes barley may be 25 minutes or a little longer wheat berries like hard red wheat berries if you're cooking those to serve as a side dish they can take up to an hour but don't worry about writing any of this down if you open the description under this video and check the link that says blog post and if you click on that link i'll have a very detailed blog post that's going to discuss all of this in much greater detail than i can cover in a video now let me share a little tip with you is there a way to cut back on the time that it takes to cook any of these firm whole grains and yes there is and not only does this tip shorten the cooking time it will also make the grains more digestible and when i talk about something being more digestible i'm talking about the ability for our bodies to better absorb the nutrients from these grains and at the same time not allow the grains to strip us of nutrients now you might be saying mary what are you talking about grains stripping us of nutrients well if you've been with me for a while you know we've talked about phytic acid now i don't want you to jump to conclusions phytic acid has a good side and then not a not so good side but what happens when you soak your grains overnight and then go to cook them the next day not only does it take less time to cook them especially in the case of something like wheat berries it also helps deactivate some but not all of the phytic acid and that's kind of a nice happy medium because phytic acid can sometimes strip minerals from our body and not allow us to absorb them but when we soak our grains and we deactivate some of the phytic acid then we're allowing our bodies to retain some of those minerals now is the remaining phytic acid potentially removing some minerals from our bodies yes that may be the case but phytic acid is also found to be a antioxidant and so as we know from scientists that who tell us that antioxidants can be very good for us at preventing disease and so on and so forth it kind of helps us get a little bit of the best of both worlds we deactivate some of the phytic acid but we keep some of it for its antioxidant benefits and sometimes depending on your ethnicity eating grains that have phytic acid in them may not necessarily be a bad thing and i have a video that i'll link to in the description below and in the icards above where i talk about why for certain people it may not be necessary to soak to soak your grains now you can certainly soak them to make the cooking easier but if you're worried about the phytic acid it may not pertain to you because some cultures specifically part of my ancestral heritage on my father's side being irish is that they found that people of irish heritage tend to hold on to iron now certainly is iron good for us yes but too much can be very hard on our hearts and so by eating foods that still have some phytic acid intact and it strips that iron from us we get more into a normal range of iron rather than having high iron so it's a very interesting topic but i think the bottom line is we need to look back at what did traditional cultures do and if they were soaking their grains before cooking them they were in essence as we mentioned earlier getting the best of both worlds maybe allowing their bodies to retain some of the minerals and not strip out all of the iron and some other things that phytic acid does strip from our bodies but at the same time relying on the antioxidant benefit of the phytic acid and something that's very interesting when it comes to this concept of phytic acid is that ancient cultures would often make breads that were based on souring using a sourdough starter but often many cultures in the spring would eat unleavened bread so they weren't souring it they weren't soaking their grains they were just eating them as flatbreads or whatever the case may be and what's interesting about that they had spent the winter eating the meats and whatnot that they had slaughtered in the fall and so they were eating a lot of protein a lot of iron-rich foods and then come the spring they were eating bitter greens and unleavened breads and foods that are thought of as being very cleansing and so maybe the phytic acid was actually helping them to to remove some of the potentially excess iron that they had built up over the winter so it's a very interesting topic i find it absolutely fascinating so if you also find this interesting be sure to check out that video where i talk about whether we need to soak our grains or not and maybe how seasonal differences and eating with the seasons play a significant role and i just want to mention in terms of how i'm boiling this faro is i do have the lid on but i have it tilted you can certainly boil this with the lid off or you can put the lid on if you're trying to maybe prevent a little splattering but i do like to allow the steam to escape and the reason is i've just found from personal experience that if i put the lid on firmly like that i can tend to uh get some over boiling and then the water might run down the side so that's just a little tip and i do it just as i would do pasta either uncovered or with the lid tilted well i've been boiling this faro for about 15 minutes and i'm just going to give it a little taste test to see if i like the texture that's really nice it still has a little bit more of a chew to it than i would like so i'm just going to let it go another minute or two as i said it can take somewhere between 15 or up to 20 minutes i think if you've been making faro according to the absorption method and you've not been happy with the consistency that you've been getting i think you're going to really be pleased cooking it this way with the pasta method and something i think you're going to really like about the pasta method when cooking grains is that they all cook very evenly whereas sometimes if you use the absorption method there's an unevenness to the cooking but with the pasta method they just come out beautifully well i'm going to turn this off now and i'm just going to use a mesh strainer to strain out my farro and i'll show you the texture well the texture on this faro came perfect in many ways you want to think of this almost in the same way you think of pasta you don't want it to be mushy you want to have it be a little al dente but that if you take a grain and squeeze it between your fingers you can squeeze it but yet you feel a little bit of resistance and that's exactly the texture that you're looking for yet it'll all just separate beautifully in the bowl nothing will be mushy nothing will be sticky and it'll just be a wonderful versatile grain that you can go ahead now and add this in at the last minute to a soup if you want to do that because it's already cooked you can toss this with some butter and salt which is always delicious and serve it as a side dish in place of rice or as i said earlier you can toss this with olive oil and vinegar it's wonderful and serve it you can even serve it that way warm as a side dish or you can let it cool and put it on top of a salad that's wonderful it gives a little bit of firmness a little bit of body to the salad as well as a lot of nutrition whole grains in general are just loaded with all types of vitamins and especially the the b vitamins which scientists tell us are very good at nourishing and soothing our nervous system which i think in this modern high stress world soothing our nervous system is always a good thing so i hope you'll give cooking firm grains a try and cooking them according to the pasta method i think you're going to be very pleased now let's move on to which grains we cook using the absorption method now with the absorption method what you generally do is measure out the amount of water that you're going to need for the amount of grain that you're cooking and then you're going to bring that water to a boil and then you're going to add in your grain and now keep in mind since this is the absorption method that the grain is going to be absorbing all of the liquid used it just doesn't need to be water you can use any kind of broth chicken broth beef broth you can use vegetable broth i have recipes on making all of these things and if you're vegetarian my vegetable broth is a high mineral broth which i think you'll really like it's very nutritious you can also use bone broth which i also have a lot of recipes for chicken bone broth or beef bone broth any liquid like that that you like and if you're just doing water but you want to flavor your grain a little bit you can add little different things to flavor up your water you can add a little citrus juice you can add a little tomato juice or tomato paste or tomato sauce and mix it in in with your water you have a lot of options and in addition to all of those possibilities i also always like to add a little salt to the water as well to help with flavoring but again if you're on a salt restricted diet you can leave that out so as i said once you get your liquid up to a boil and then you add in your grain you're going to turn it down to a low simmer and let it simmer until it's cooked and tender and that simmering time is going to depend on which grain you're cooking but again as i mentioned earlier be sure to open the description underneath this video and click on the link that will take you over to my website where i have a blog post that i'll cover all of these times and all of these different grains in great detail one of the most common grains that you'll hear cooked in the absorption method is bulgur or sometimes referred to as bulgur wheat and as the name implies bulgur wheat is wheat it's wheat berries that have basically been boiled or steamed and then basically milled into a fine medium or slightly coarser texture now some other grains that are cooked in the absorption method are grains like millet and quinoa however millet and quinoa lend themselves better in terms of flavoring when cooked in what i call that sort of offshoot of the absorption method our third method the pilaf method or the pilaf absorption or absorption pilaf method and we'll cover those in a minute but the reason that bulger wheat or bulgur is often cooked just in the simple absorption method is bulger is commonly used to make a dish called tabouli and tabouli is so rich in its flavorings that it's nice to start with a bulgur that has a more simple taste profile so it can really absorb all the wonderful flavorings that are used in the tabbouleh recipe and bulgur also lends itself well to the absorption method because it is a wheat that has already been cooked and then is ground into its consistency here whereas millet and quinoa are in their whole form so they benefit from maybe being toasted in that pilaf manner before being transferred into the absorption method whereas if you try to uh cook a bulgur wheat when the pilaf method you may risk it becoming a little mushy on you so i recommend when it comes to cooking boulder bulgur just stick with the plain simple absorption method now sometimes when you're a bulger is milled very finely like mine you can bring your water to a boil or your broth bone broth whatever you're using pour your your bulgur wheat in there and turn the heat off and just put the lid on and leave it there for a while it will absorb all of the liquid and may be perfect for moving forward with in whatever recipe that you're going to be using your bulger weed in and it works very well that method works very well if you have a pretty fine ground uh bulger wheat and you're going to be moving on to using it in some type of salad that's going to be tossed with some type of dressing that's going to soften it even even further like in a tabbouleh but generally bulgur lends itself very well to being poured into salted water or broth or whatever the case may be and then turn down to a low simmer and allow it to simmer for about 10 minutes during that time it'll absorb all the liquid and it'll be cooked perfectly and then once that happens after that 10 minutes you're gonna set it aside with the lid on for about five minutes and then fluff it with a fork and it's all ready now for a cup of bulgur wheat you're going to need two cups of water or broth so i'm going to go ahead and i'm going to pour in my two cups of water and i'm going to bring this up to a boil and once it comes up to a boil we'll go ahead and i like to salt the water a little i'm going to go ahead and salt it once it comes up to a boil and then we'll stir in our bulgur wheat now i want to clarify something for you bulgur wheat and cracked wheat are two different things so if you buy cracked wheat it is as the name implies it's simply the wheat berry that's been cracked not unlike an oat groad which is the whole oat that then has been turned into steel cut oats where they basically take the whole oat groat and cut it up so cracked wheat lends itself better to being cooked in the pasta method and speaking of oat groats while i'm waiting for this water to come up to a boil i just want to mention that oat groats which is the term that's used to refer to the whole oat not the flaked oat not the steel cut oats but the whole oat oat groats cook up beautifully when cooked in the pasta method and will resemble like what the cooked faro looked like and then it can actually be served and used in savory recipes and you can toss it with butter and salt or you can put it in soups or toss it with olive oil and vinegar and top salads with it or you put it in stuffed peppers there's so many things you can do with oat groats and they can be both sweet and savory so that's a nice thing to know if you're trying to incorporate more oats into your diet that oat groats can be cooked in the pasta method and can be eaten as a savory dish and now if you find yourself with a nice supply of oat groats i also have a video where i show you how to cook oat groats into oatmeal and i am going to tell you that's going to be the best oatmeal you've ever had when you make it from when you start with the very beginning at the very beginning with the whole oat groat and i'll be sure to link in the description below and in in the i cards and if i ever run out of room in the icards i always put everything in the description below but cooking oatmeal homemade oatmeal starting with oat groats really creates a delicious oatmeal that i think you're going to absolutely love so be sure to check that out well my two cups of water have come up to a boil i'm going to go ahead and put my salt in and just give that a little stir and now i'm going to go ahead and add in my bulgur wheat give that a little stir and we'll turn our heat down to medium-low and just let this simmer for about 10 minutes well i poured in my bulgur i gave it a little spin around in the boiling water i turned it down to a very low simmer i put the lid on and now we'll wait about 10 minutes well i let my bulger simmer on low covered for 10 minutes and now i've turned off the heat and i'm just going to let it sit covered for about five minutes now the nice thing about bulgur is that this is a terrific grain to cook if you're in a hurry and you do not need to soak this overnight at all like as we talked about with the other whole grains if you're concerned about the phytic acid and you want to soak your grains overnight that involves another step but with bulgur because it's been steamed or parboiled already you do not have to worry about soaking this overnight because in essence some of the phytic acid has already been deactivated through the parboiling and through the steaming process and i want to share another little tip uh that actually is something i learned from the book nourishing traditions by sally fallon who talks a lot about traditional cooking all about bone broths and ferments sourdough so on and so forth but sally recommended that if you were in a situation where you wanted to make a quick bread for example or cookies something that didn't lend itself to being made with a sourdough or didn't lend itself uh to soaking the flour overnight because if you soak your flour overnight to try to deactivate some of that phytic acid when you're making a quick bread or muffins it can create a very dense baked good but in her cookbook nourishing traditions she recommends grinding bulgur wheat into a flour and then baking your quick bread or your muffins or your cookies using the bulgur wheat flour because since it has been boiled or steamed some of as we mentioned earlier some of the phytic acid has been deactivated making it something that not only is more digestible but may wind up being more nutritious for you and allowing you to assimilate the nutrients properly and not strip nutrients from your body well it's been five minutes so i'm going to take this off the heat i'm going to remove the lid the steam be careful when you do that and it looks wonderful now we'll go ahead and we'll flake it with a fork and as you fluff this burger weed with your fork i think you're going to be very pleased at how it's turned out it's light and fluffy it's not mushy it's not sticking together it's just a beautiful delightful very lightly lightened texture cooked up grain so this really can be a lovely vehicle for incorporating lots of nutrition because if you did cook this in broth or bone broth or a vegetable broth you you up not only the nutritional value but if you use a high mineral vegetable broth you've really made it very rich in minerals and if you use a bone broth you've introduced a lot of gelatin which helps with digestibility so there's so much that you can do with this to basically use it as a vehicle to incorporate other ways of getting nutrients into your body well let's give this a taste and see how the texture came it looks wonderful it's just looks so light and fluffy not mushy but yet not overly dense in any sense perfect texture this method for bulger wheat the absorption method is perfect and i think you're going to be very pleased with the texture that you get from this method now you can go ahead and just serve this right as is you can serve it in place of rice or maybe in place of couscous it really works very well if you want to add another level of flavor you can toss it with some butter uh or you can add in some chopped vegetables there's so much that you can do with this in addition to just turning it into the basic tabbouleh that's the most common recipe but it makes a wonderful simple side dish now the next method the third method that we're going to talk about is the pilaf method and as i shared earlier this is a bit of an offshoot of the absorption method now grains that lend themselves very well to this pilaf method are millet and quinoa now you may be used to hearing the pilaf method used for when cooking white rice because it really increases the nice flavor level as opposed to just cooking white rice with the absorption method but grains like millet and quinoa can be a wonderful change of pace when making a pilaf not to mention that they're very nutritious more nutritious than white rice and once you move on from the initial pilaf method which i'll explain in a minute and you move into the absorption method to finish cooking these grains you can use any liquid you want it just doesn't need to be water it can be as we discussed with the original or the the single absorption method it can be broth bone broth vegetable broth you can use different flavorings in your water if you don't have any of those on hand so you have a lot of flexibility there for not only added nutrition but added flavor now today we'll cook the millet in the pilaf absorption method but don't worry over on the blog post i'll have all the information about how to cook the quinoa as well as all the other grains we've talked about now the nice thing about millet it has a wonderful flavor to it almost somewhat corn like it leans on the sweet side and it's also gluten free so that's very helpful if you follow a gluten-free diet also millet can be used in both sweet and savory recipes in many ways it's like oats how i talked about before that can be both in used in sweet and savory methods making it a nice oatmeal but also making it a savory side dish now today we're going to cook up this millet so that it's very light and fluffy and makes a wonderful side dish that can be used in place of rice or couscous or anything like that but if you cook your millet using a little bit of extra water and cooking it a little longer the little millet grains will pop and they'll become very creamy the texture of of the millet will become very creamy like a porridge and it makes a wonderful breakfast cereal you put a little maple syrup on that it's just outstanding now i want to mention that millet and quinoa in many ways are similar to the other grains that if you want to deactivate some of the phytic acid you can go ahead and soak these overnight and that will reduce the amount of cooking time but if you decide not to soak your millet or your quinoa i do recommend giving this a good rinsing in a fine mesh strainer and you need a fine mesh strainer because as you can see these just are like a little little tiny sea they look like little tiny seeds and the reason is this will help help wash off any kind of loose starch that might be mixed among these little millet grains and that will prevent the millet from cooking up to be somewhat uh mushy or gummy rinsing off that little bit of residual starch that may be around them will help them cook up nice and light and fluffy so in this pilaf method which is a variation on the absorption method what we do is we toast our grains to give them a nice little nutty flavor now you can go ahead and toast your grain in a frying pan and then transfer it to the pot in which you're going to cook your grain but i find that i can just toast it right in the pot that i'm going to cook it in as well and it works just fine now there are a couple of ways you can do this and for today i'm just going to keep this very simple i am going to go ahead and just dry toast these grains in my pot however there are various ways that you can go about this to add more flavor if you want you can put some butter in your pan or olive oil or a combination you could use ghee whatever fat you like and then you can go ahead and saute your grains in essence in that butter you can also go ahead and add some herbs and spices along with your fat when you're toasting it so you do have options and you do you can layer these flavors and also can continue to add additional nutrition you can also add any type of chopped up dried fruit or chopped up vegetables and you can go ahead and saute those a little in the butter with your various herbs and spices before you add your grain in and then cook your grain in that mixture so there are many variations on the pilaf method so i've got my one cup of millet here and we'll just go ahead for today and just give this a dry toasting and i've already gone ahead and give it a good rinsing now i've just got this on a medium heat and i'm just going to watch it this is only going to take a couple of minutes and i'm just going to keep stirring this around i don't want anything to burn and i'm just going to keep stirring it around until it gets a nice toasted color to it well after a few minutes this is going to take on a wonderful toasted aroma and that's the perfect time to add your water and for one cup of millet you're going to need three cups of water or again you're welcome to use any kind of broth or flavorings in your water and so i'll go ahead and just add this in it's going to sizzle a bit and then i'm gonna go ahead and just add in a little bit of salt i always find a little bit of salt always helps with the flavor of the final product now i'm just going to give this a good stir to help that salt dissolve then we'll bring this up to a boil then we'll turn it down to low and we'll put the lid on and we'll let it simmer for about 30 minutes well i let this simmer on low for 30 minutes then i turned off the heat and let it just sit for five minutes and now i think it'll be done perfectly oh yeah look at oh this just looks wonderful and then i'm just going to take a fork and i'm going to fluff it look at how light and fluffy this is and none of the grains are sticking together it's just beautiful this is such a lovely way to cook millet plus when i took the lid of the pot off the aroma the nutty aroma because we dry roasted the millet before we added the water really makes a difference and i think that i've heard from a lot of people who have cooked millet just in the absorption method and they've said yeah you know i had it at a like a vegetarian or vegan restaurant and it was really good but then when i made it at home i didn't like it at all it was so plain and not flavorful but the secret is doing the pilaf absorption method because once you uh toast this and then add the water you get this wonderful rich flavor that come that comes out from it well let's give it a little taste and we'll see how it came oh it's just so light and fluffy um what a difference when you toast millet you know it's a very mild grain but when when you toast it you really bring out that corn flavor well now that you know how to cook different whole grains and how to cook them the right way for the whole grain that you're cooking i hope you'll start giving this a try and if you'd like to learn about what whole grains you should be stocking in your pantry including modern grains ancient grains as well as gluten-free grains be sure to click on this video over here where i have a playlist that talks all about grains as well as how to grind them into flour and how to use them for baking and i'll see you over there in my texas hill country kitchen love and god bless

Channel: Mary's Nest

Views: 11,821

Rating: 4.9623971 out of 5

Keywords: 3 Ways to Cook Whole Grains - The Right Way, 3 ways to cook whole grains, the right way to cook whole grains, whole grain, whole grains, grains, how to cook whole grains, quinoa, oats, whole wheat, millet, farro, einkorn, spelt, ancient grains, gluten free grains, how to cook ancient grains, how to cook gluten free grains, cooking grains, cooking whole grains, cooking with whole grains, whole grains nutrition facts, how to cook wheat berries, marysnest, marys nest

Id: fKL7vj-Nkj0

Length: 39min 36sec (2376 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 13 2021