This is the first guest post by Nate Otto, who is Meggie’s partner in gardening and sometimes cooking.
I sometimes buy a tub of orzo salad from the Market of Choice deli, but I like it so much that I can’t afford to buy as much as I want. Tonight I mixed up what I think is a pretty good reproduction of what I like about this dish, and I’m recording it, so I can do it again next time. I made a triple recipe and did not regret it.
Pasta:
1 1/2 cups orzo pasta
4 cups water
1/2 cup chicken stock or stock of your choice
Mix-ins:
2/3 cup sliced green olives plus a little olive brine
handful golden raisins
handful raisins
1/4 cup almond slivers
Vinaigrette dressing:
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
1 tsp honey
2 tsp course salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp dried oregano flakes
Boil water in a stock pot then pour in orzo. Cook for about 10 minutes, until just approaching desired texture. Drain and pour into large mixing bowl. As orzo cools, keep it from sticking together by mixing in stock in several splashes. You can assist cooling by putting the mixing bowl in a sink of cold water.
Shake dressing ingredients together in a mason jar with lid.
Mix dressing into pasta and add mix-ins. Add olive brine, pepper, salt, or more red wine vinegar to taste. Once you can’t stop tasting it, it’s done, and it should be put away in a sealed airtight container and buried deep in a refrigerator so you have a chance of forgetting about it for longer than ten minutes.
I’ll try any recipe with green olives. I feel that it might be strange to eat them with raisins, but why not? Welcome back.
The sweetness of the raisins are a great contrast to the briny green olive flavor, I think. Mmmm. I was thinking of adding more stuff to this recipe, but Meggie told me this was enough. Now that I’ve gobbled my fair share, I have to agree.
And thanks for the comment. We just got a bunch of great kitchen goodies in the Christmas season, so I bet you’ll be seeing some more frequent posting here in the new year.