Leave the quinoa and get your freekeh on

Quinoa, my friend, we need to talk.

I think it’s time we went our separate ways. It’s not you, though. And for the record it’s not me, either. It’s that new guy, freekeh. He wants some of the super-grain spotlight.

Freekeh, pronounced free-kuh or free-kah, is a young, green Middle Eastern wheat grain which, once harvested early, is then dried, burnt and rubbed or “thrashed”, causing it to crack up. You can cook with it easily — to eat on its own it should be rinsed first and then placed in simmering water. It can be happily added to stocks or soups and, because it is harvested young, it is said to retain its high protein and vitamin content. It also has a low GI index. So far so healthy.

But in recent weeks freekeh has begun to attract a wider food audience in London because of its lovely nutty flavour and smoky aroma. It has appeared on menus at restaurants including The Palomar, where it sits inside “josperised onions” or alongside chicken and baby carrots, as well as in a super salad at the Cowshed spa, accompanied by feta, mint, leaves, roasted lemon, cherry tomatoes and toasted almonds.

Yotam Ottolenghi is also a fan and uses it for making pilafs, in salads and for serving with lamb or chicken and, at a “Moroccan Night” pop-up dinner hosted in March at The Dolls House in Hoxton Square, freekeh featured with rose-harissa-marinated Dorset lamb shanks braised in red wine and mint.

“I just think it’s an amazing grain, really. It’s a very nutritional grain too. It’s got a lovely earthy, robust taste to it. It’s hardy. It’s hard to overcook it. It’s always al dente. It’s multi-purpose too,” explains James Walters, director and executive chef at The Arabica Food and Spice Company, which will expand into a restaurant later this month in Borough Market.

Walters, who has been importing the grain for a few years, describes the difficulty of sourcing properly produced freekeh. “I’ve got 300kg arriving next week as I’ve been out of it for three or four months now — some of the best available is Syrian so it’s very, very difficult to source. I now work with a co-operative in Jordan that plants it for me.”

Meanwhile at Marks & Spencer, where the food-development team has returned from research trips to Tel Aviv and San Francisco, where they discovered “some amazing places serving delicious freekeh dishes”, a Palestinian variety of freekeh was recently introduced into three salads as part of its Summer Food range. Some 20,000 packs are now selling weekly.

“We are always searching for the next big trends in food as we know our customers love discovering new cuisines and flavours. We were the first retailer to make quinoa mainstream and ever since we’ve been on the hunt for a new grain that is not only delicious but healthy,” says M&S head of product development, Sandra Ziles.

Finally, on June 19, Salt Yard Books will publish Food from the Middle East by Sarit Packer and Itamar Srulovich, the husband-and-wife team behind the restaurant Honey & Co. In it is a recipe for whole stuffed chicken with freekeh, almonds and pine nuts. Freekeh out.