Grains & Greens

These Ingredients Always Have Packed A Nutrition Punch. Now, Served Together Or Separately, They've Become The Darlings Of Inventive Cooks

March 12, 1997

They make a good team. Greens have flair, grains are no-frills. Grains offer substance while greens add color and texture. Greens shrink when cooked, grains plump up. Even better, greens and grains make a nutritious but delicious dynamic duo. Their complementary flavors provide comfort food with dozens of vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients. Adding some greens and grains to your diet is suggested by every dietitian.

But the advice goes beyond the morning bowl of oatmeal (which can get boring) or daily tossed salad (of virtually no nutritional value if iceberg lettuce is the main ingredient). The abundance of more robust greens and whole grains in supermarkets opens up a whole new set of menu options.

Restaurants also are not about to miss out on a trend. The city's formidable number of Middle Eastern dining spots are developing inventive ingredients for the standby bulgur kibbe and introducing couscous to new customers every day. Polenta appears on most Italian menus, and brown rice has become an option in newer Asian restaurants. Greens have arrived as full-bodied side dishes; the salad of baby lettuces is a new tradition.

Greens, which include the common lettuces and spinach we toss into raw salads, includes a whole group of wild, edible leaves that have been domesticated. Some cultures are already ahead of the curve, having made a tradition of such dishes as mustard greens or collards. Yet there is no reason others can't join the advanced group.

What qualifies as a grain is more elusive. Raymond Sokolov, author of "With the Grain," provides a useful definition.

"Grains contain the seeds of grasses. The useful `grain' parts of the plants, those parts fit for human consumption, are the endosperms. These little packets of starch, protein and other nutrients are meant by nature to nourish the true seed--called the germ or embryo."

There's no arguing that greens and grains are good for you. They form the foundation of any nutritionally sound food pyramid, whether its origins are the Mediterranean, Asia or some administrator's office at the USDA.

But some might question whether greens and grains can taste good too.

"Grains need some flavor," said Paula Wolfert, the cookbook author who broke new ground with "Mediterranean Cooking" in 1977. "Otherwise they don't taste that great and people won't eat them for long, even if they promise so many health benefits. You need some fat, and there are ways to use spices to `coach' the flavors."

Greens also have a reputation as something you should eat but don't necessarily want to eat. One study has shown that some people even have a genetic makeup that causes them to dislike the bitter taste of certain greens.

"I love blending greens like chard, kale, mustard green, collards and watercress," said Wolfert, who is working on a new book about Mediterranean greens and grains to be published next year. "You can get this wonderful, deeply flavorful, distinctive mess of greens. And you don't have to cook them with pork or other saturated fats to make them taste good.

"I sometimes just steam and wilt them, then drag the greens through garlic sauteed in heated olive oil. That enriches the flavor more than just pouring some olive oil over the top. If you want, throw a little anchovy in with the garlic."

Wolfert tries something new for dinner almost every night. But she and her husband choose a "refreshing" raw green salad most evenings to accompany a meal. For two, she combines a half cup each of green cabbage or Chinese cabbage and arugula or baby greens, some chopped cilantro to taste, a bit of feta cheese, a drizzle of olive oil, lemon juice and three chopped green olives.

Barbara Grunes, a cookbook author from Glencoe, recently completed "All-American Waves of Grain," due out in April. She turned to grains as part of her own lifestyle changes.

"Over 30 years, I have seen many changes in people's eating patterns," she said. "For me, getting a bit older gets me thinking I need to eat better, adding more whole grains and greens to my meals. It works: Eating better makes me feel better."

Grunes was pleasantly surprised at how such nutritious foods still produced flavor and fun in the kitchen. "Cooking grains is so much more creative than simply using meats and chicken," she said. "There is much more variety in tastes."

For example, she discovered the "ground nut" flavor of amaranth and "sweet soft-crunchy" quinoa, both ancient grains. She has enjoyed adding millet to her breads ("crunchy and fluffy at the same time") and buckwheat in her crepes ("more robust").

Another plus: Many grains are easy to cook and make great leftovers to spruce up next-day salads or soups. Wolfert often doesn't cook her bulgur (cracked wheat); simply soaking it for 20 to 30 minutes in boiling water (or about 2 hours in cold water) is enough when making it into a pilaf for lunch. She adds parsley for homemade tabbouleh (12 grams of fiber per cup) or any number of protein-rich ingredients from chicken to chickpeas.