Charlie Bird’s Farro Salad

Charlie Bird’s Farro Salad

There are two essential steps to a stellar farro salad. The first is cooking the farro with enough salt and aromatics so that it delicious before you combine it with the rest of the ingredients. The second is to use very good olive oil in the dressing. This farro salad, from the restaurant Charlie Bird in SoHo, hits both these marks. The chef Ryan Hardy cooks the farro in apple cider seasoned with bay leaves and plenty of salt, which renders it good enough to eat on its own. But it’s even better after he adds loads of olive oil, plus pistachio nuts and Parmesan cheese to make it even richer. Then, before serving, he folds in fresh vegetables to brighten it up: juicy tomatoes, radishes, arugula and plenty of herbs. There are many farro salads of this ilk out there. This is one of the best.

Yield: 6 servings

1 cup farro

1 cup apple cider

2 teaspoons kosher salt, more as needed

2 bay leaves

8 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

70 grams Parmesan cheese, shaved with a vegetable peeler (½ cup)

70 grams chopped pistachio nuts (½ cup)

2 cups arugula leaves

1 cup parsley or basil leaves, torn

1 cup mint leaves

¾ cup halved cherry or grape tomatoes

⅓ cup thinly sliced radish

Maldon or other flaky sea salt, for finishing

In a medium saucepan, bring farro, apple cider, salt, bay leaves and 2 cups water to a simmer. Simmer until farro is tender and liquid evaporates, about 30 minutes. If all the liquid evaporates before the farro is done, add a little more water. Let farro cool, then discard bay leaves.

In a salad bowl, whisk together olive oil, lemon juice and a pinch of salt. Add farro, cheese and pistachio nuts and mix well. This salad base will keep for up to 4 hours at room temperature or overnight in the refrigerator (bring to room temperature before serving). Just before serving, fold in arugula, herbs, tomatoes, radish and flaky salt to taste.

TIP: When discussing these notes and peoples' tribulations with farro cooking time my wife - something of a farro aficionado - pointed out that there are pearled and non-pearled versions available. Apparently the non-pearled takes twice as long to cook. Perhaps this is the source of confusion over cooking times?

I used pearled (without knowing the difference at the time) and it was perfect - a little nutty with a very slight crunch but perfectly edible - in 30 minutes using hard cider as liquid.

This was good but with some adjustments: Made this with Trader Joe's 10-minute farro so I used 1C apple cider and 1C water and only simmered for 15 minutes. I cut down on the olive oil and did NOT add salt. (The first time I made this the 2 tsp of salt overpowered everything and I had to throw the farro out.)

This is such a fantastic recipe, although as others noted, the salt added in to the farro is too much, especially once you put the salty parmesan on top. I roasted some sweet potato in chunks to add instead of the tomatoes to make a more autumn-y salad, I thought it was delicious and wished I had made more of the farro to make it last longer! The base easily lasted 5 days in my fridge and made for delicious lunches at the office.