08 September 2011

Orzo salad

Although summer hasn’t shown her face this year, this salad brings me as close as possible to that summer feeling. I’ve heard about orzo pasta, but never found it in the store, until now.

I grew up with rice and noodles so I can’t wrap my mind around rice shaped pasta. Pasta should have all kinds of shapes, but why make them look like rice? I am so use to rice it was quite weird to cook with this pasta. It’s probably something that’s between my ears. It will go away…eventually…
Ok the ingredients I used in this salad are: cherry tomatoes, arugula, prosciutto, orzo pasta, onion and garlic. And last minute I decided to add some black olives and balsamic vinegar as well, so that’s not in the picture.
First I started with cooking the orzo in boiling salted water till they were done. I am very bad with measurements; that’s why I always end up with lots of food. I think for this salad I used about 300 grams of orzo.
While the pasta was cooking I chopped up one onion, grated about 3 gloves of garlic, quartered the tomatoes and pitted and sliced the olives. I drizzled some balsamic vinegar to give it more flavor.
I used the flat side of my knife to flatten the olive so I could easily pull out the seed. Who needs an olive pitter if you can do it like this.
The pasta was still a bit warm when I mixed it with the rest of the ingredients. 
Right before serving I tore the prosciutto in small bits and mixed in the arugula. Then I added some salt and pepper and it was ready.
And to make it even extra special…I added some toast pine seeds and one soft boil egg on top. I was too lazy to make poached egg and soft boil did the trick for me.

I'm saying bye to the summer, but not to this salad!

15 comments:

  1. What a great summer (or fall!) salad!

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  2. The poached egg definitely brings this salad to a whole new level! Looks tasty =)

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  3. This looks delicious! I remember the first time I had orzo, too....it's kinda cool! You made a tasty salad AMAZING with that poached egg! Wow!

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  4. LOL I am Italian but have the same problem with this shape of pasta... why make some pasta that looks like rice?? hehehe Very weird! The salad looks great though!!!! :-)

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  5. I LOVE the soft boiled egg part.... makes this salad extra good!

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  6. Yummy orzo salad. The poached egg is melting in my mouth... Very colourful salad!

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  7. Yummy...I haven't had orzo in too long. Beautiful salad.

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  8. Someone bought be 3kg of Orzo a few months ago and I've been hanging on to it until I find out what to do with it...now I know!

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  9. And also, I did eat the purple beans raw and they were incredibly sweet!

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  10. Super salad. The arugula, with it's hint of spice, would transition to the Fall. Love it!

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  11. Oooh I love how you put the egg on it! Looks super good Lilly!

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  12. Yum! I really enjoy using orzo too and that egg on top really kicks this salad up a notch!

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  13. I'm without on the whole orzo shaped thing. I've only had it twice and it was very hard to get used to the rice look, but slippery pasta feel.

    This salad didn't really catch my eye until that perfectly cooked egg on the top. Geez, you know how to tempt a girl.

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  14. I've never had orzo pasta before, it really looks a lot like rice!

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  15. It’s good to hear that I am not the only one who has “problems” with rice shaped pasta. But I have to admit the salad was great and I would make it again in a heart beat…with the soft boiled egg on top!

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