I have rye berries! A lot of them. “What’s the big deal,” you may ask. Well they’re really cool to cook with. The short version of the acquisition story is that my friend’s brother has a hobby farm, and they grow rye, which they just harvested. My friend and his wife came back from a visit with about 15 pounds of rye berries, a significant amount of which was gifted to me.
At first, I had no idea what to do with them besides grind them up and make flour out of them, which I’ve since learned from my friend takes a ridiculously long time to grind them without the proper equipment.
Another great use is cooking them like rice and using them in various ways, including this salad, which is loosely based on a recipe I found online.
Another thing I plan to do with them is use as a substitute for rice in fried rice. I’ll post that recipe when I get to it.
It’s really cool to learn about and acquire a previously unknown food. I’m not sure where to actually buy them, but some brick-and-mortar stores have to sell them. I found some online for $4 a pound, and on another site for $65 for 50 pounds.
What you’ll need:
- 1 cup rye berries
- Water for boiling the rye
- 1t kosher salt for the rye berry boiling water
- 1T maple syrup
- 1T oil (maybe olive oil would be best)
- 2T lime juice
- 2 avocados, diced
- 2 mangos, diced
- 0.25 cups fresh mint, chopped
- 0.33 cups macadamia nuts, roughly chopped
What to do:
This recipe is basically cooking the rye berries and letting them cool before adding the fruit and the dressing.
There are a couple of easy ways to cook the rye berries: 1) soak them overnight before boiling them for about 30-35 minutes, then draining them, and 2) boil non-soaked rye berries for about 1 hour before draining them. For either method, let them cool completely at room temperature before completing the salad. Obviously, they can be cooked ahead of time. Just make sure to refrigerate them after cooking.
When the rye berries are ready, whisk the syrup, oil and lime juice in a small bowl. Set aside.
Add the cooked rye berries to a bowl and mix in the avocados, mangos, mint and nuts. Gently mix well, so all the ingredients are evenly distributed.
Stir in the dressing and serve. This is a little more flavorful at room temperature, as opposed to right out of the refrigerator.
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