Herbed Grain Salad With Mushrooms, Hazelnuts and Pears Recipe (2024)

Delicious. I recommend adding pear only to the part of the salad you want to eat right away, and add it to the remaining salad only when you plan to eat it. Otherwise the pear turns brown and mushy.

Just one question. Why in the world would you BOIL a nice maitake or sh*take mushroom that you could just sauté instead?! They cook perfectly well without any water. I’m honestly baffled by this technique — we made the recipe but sautéed the mushrooms in a little olive oil first, then added them and the dressing to the rest of the salad ingredients. I would really love for someone to explain why the boiling? Thanks!

Buckwheat groats ( Kasha) would be nice. Use a tart apple instead of a pear to balance out the flavor with buckwheat.

Really tasty. But I would love for someone to explain the mushroom cooking technique. Why the water? We just sauteed the mushrooms, and they were delicious.

I could not bring myself to boil the mushrooms, they were good sauteed. This is a nice side dish for chicken, fish or pork, but hearty enough to serve as a main dish for vegetarians. It is different, which was appreciated.

2 teaspoons of salt for the dressing? I thought that seemed like a lot and used about half of that, but it was still quite salty... Apart from that, this recipe has great potential.

What might be a good grain for this that is Gluten Free? Quinoa? or brown and wild rice?

(in response to Eileen Cohrs) farro is not GF. it's a form of wheat...

This was delicious. I made it with pearl couscous and walnuts. I added quite a bit more vinegar than the recipe suggests.

Excellent! The "boil mushroom" technique was described in Cooks Illustrated. It allows the mushrooms to release their liquid before the addition of oil. The results are the same, but with much less oil. I used farro, added in some raw bok choi at the end, and only used half of the dressing. The other half went on the grilled salmon. Fantastic dish!

It may be a legacy of Soviet cuisine. Vegetables were often boiled there for salads, I cannot remember them ever being sauteed. That being said, I grew up in the USSR and I do not remember this salad. Must be a new creation and l Iike the idea.

Although new to boiling mushrooms, we found this technique worked well with a mix of shiitakes and oysters from the farmer’s market. It creates mushroom, keeps them tender, and they still browned and smelt heavenly as usual. We cut the oil from 3/4 C to 1/4 C and didn’t miss it. Dill pesto is a great idea.

Made a few changes. I count calories and 3/4 cup of oil is a lot! So, made the dressing with only 1/4 cup of olive oil and 1/4 cup of walnuts. Didn't boil the mushrooms, just sauteed them in 2T of oil. Cut up the pear, then squeezed half lemon over the pieces so they don't brown. Still came out great and I think it would have been oily with that much oil.

I thought it was a lot of dressing and a bit garlicky. The garlic overwhelmed the other flavours. So I’d definitely reduce both. I liked the mushroom cooking method. It really intensified the flavour. I would also probably add more mushrooms and pears next time (the pears really enhanced it).

I made the recipe as directed, using farro for the grain and spinach in the dressing. I was super skeptical of boiling my shiitake mushrooms, but did it anyway. Both my husband and I like the dish quite a bit, but I don't think the mushrooms added anything. In the future, I would omit them. I'm not a huge mushroom fan anyway, so this doesn't break my heart. The dressing was delicious, but VERY rich. For leftovers, I tossed the dressed grain salad with more raw spinach and it balanced well.

This was rich and bright, but we didn’t enjoy it. I think the culprit was the raw garlic which overpowered the subtle flavors of the barley, hazelnut, and mushrooms. We love garlic but this was yucky! I adore Kachka, and don’t think think Chef Morales would serve such an imbalanced dish. I live in Oregon so my hazelnuts and pears were perfect and my dill freshly picked from my rainy garden! I was left craving dried sour cherries, so suggest a sour cherry dessert and omitting/sautéing the garlic.

Made a few changes. I count calories and 3/4 cup of oil is a lot! So, made the dressing with only 1/4 cup of olive oil and 1/4 cup of walnuts. Didn't boil the mushrooms, just sauteed them in 2T of oil. Cut up the pear, then squeezed half lemon over the pieces so they don't brown. Still came out great and I think it would have been oily with that much oil.

Excellent! The "boil mushroom" technique was described in Cooks Illustrated. It allows the mushrooms to release their liquid before the addition of oil. The results are the same, but with much less oil. I used farro, added in some raw bok choi at the end, and only used half of the dressing. The other half went on the grilled salmon. Fantastic dish!

Although new to boiling mushrooms, we found this technique worked well with a mix of shiitakes and oysters from the farmer’s market. It creates mushroom, keeps them tender, and they still browned and smelt heavenly as usual. We cut the oil from 3/4 C to 1/4 C and didn’t miss it. Dill pesto is a great idea.

Amazingly delicious recipe. I wouldn’t change a thing

This was a plate licker, as my daughter and I call our favorite dishes. But a few comments follow. 1.5 t diamond brand kosher salt did the trick. The recomended 2 t was too much. Next time around Id reduce olive oil to more like 1/2 cup. Also, I did follow the step to simmer mushrooms in water but I wondered about it’s usefulness like others have. I chose to do it bc my king oysters got a little dried out in the fridge. They came out hella good, but Next time I’ll go straight to sautéing them

Share mushrooms instead of boiling and use less salt.

Perhaps they were using dried mushrooms.

Can you add the recipe for the recommended sorrel dressing? "Another great option: Julia Moskin’s herbed grain salad with mushrooms, hazelnuts, pears and a sorrel dressing."

Excellent recipe, my wife loved the dish. Quinoa could be used instead of the barley.

Followed recipe exactly including boiling the oyster mushroom I decided to use, loved it. Will add some chicken to the leftovers and am still thinking this recipe is the best new recipe I have tried in months.

Used farro and tart apple. I also cut down the oil in the dressing to 1/4 cup. It was delicious.

trimmed stalks from the mushroomscut the oil in the dressing to 1/2 ccut the grains to 1 cdidn't bother pre-par-boiling the mushrooms, just sauteed them in a little oildelish