How do you simply not fall in love with the way cooked quinoa looks? Combine it with some edamame and the color combination simply a tease on the eyes. Do not even get me started on the delicacy this results in. I am a very earthy kind of person and I like some natural spices in my food. If all my culinary experience has taught me something, it is that the more the better is definitely not true when it comes to spices. You have to be careful to balance out the various flavors that you are playing against each other in your recipe. Do too much and you can kill the flavor that the spics were supposed to bring in the first place.

Now whenever someone says curry, I think about having to prepare a bread or side dish like rice or noodles to go with it. Then it struck me that the curry powder which we can buy in supermarkets is dry on its original form and although it is usually advertised as an addition to water to make the curry base but I wanted to use it in a salad. How crazy is that? Seemed pretty crazy to me at first but I just hoped that it tastes equally crazy too, crazy good, of course. So, putting together the ingredients for this quinoa salad recipe, I already had quinoa, edamame and some curry powder in my shopping cart.

Nest I had to think back to my spices experiments to find the right flavors for this salad. If course you have to include a few that go well in a curry to get that wholesome flavor but you do not have to limit yourself to the usual. For a change, I wanted some pecans and raisins in this quinoa salad recipe. I must mention that this was my pick from the dry fruits but you add if you more fond of any others of the same genre. Also, it is highly recommended that if you find that orange juice is a bit sweet for your taste, you can use another citrus fruit which can maybe bring slight tanginess to the salad.

Remember, it is about balancing the flavors off each other as I mentioned above. Maple syrup is to just bring all the favors together, as if tying them together like a string of pearls which is beautiful to look at and serves its function of enhancing the beauty of the person wearing it very well. This should let you achieve that perfection of flavors that you are looking for. If anything, I should call this one a truly multi cultural quinoa salad recipe. To understand what I mean by that just do a research on all the ingredients and you will get it (a side exercise you can do while you enjoying mouthfuls of this delicacy). Go ahead, tie that apron and let us get started.

Steps to cook:

1. Cook edamame and quinoa in separate skillets but simultaneously. Into the cooked quinoa, add edamame, chopped up cilantro (just halve it) and the raisins or any other dry fruits.
2. In a different bowl, combine all the remaining ingredients. Leave the pecans out of it.
3. Slightly roast or toast the pecans to bring out the maximum fragrance. You may or may not add olive oil while roasting the pecans.
4. In final plating, top the bowl with the pecans sitting on the top. You will observe that the curry powder not only lends a beautiful taste but also due to it, the dish upon completion exhibits a beautiful color on the whole.
5. Your dish is ready to be served. Enjoy!

If there is one thing that I can ask of you in return of sharing this gift with you, it is that please share this with as many people as possible. Let us enjoy the global goodness of this recipe together.