Israeli-style quinoa salad with feta, herbs and sumac

Method

1. Toast the pumpkin seeds in the dry 16 cm saucepan over a medium heat for 3–4 minutes, shaking often: they should puff up, crackle, turn pale gold and smell nutty. Immediately tip into a small dish with a pinch of salt (0.3 g) to stop them cooking, and keep the saucepan.
2. Rinse the quinoa in the fine sieve under cold water, rubbing it for 30 seconds to remove the bitter saponin, then shake thoroughly to drain. Tip into the still-warm saucepan and dry over a medium heat for 2 minutes, stirring, until it crackles and smells toasted. Add the 210 g water and 2 g salt, bring to the boil over a high heat for 2–3 minutes, then cover, reduce the heat to its lowest setting and cook for 12 minutes: all the water should be absorbed and each grain translucent, surrounded by a small white spiral. Remove from the heat and rest, covered, for 10 minutes without lifting the lid: the grains finish swelling and lose their chalky centres.
3. While it cooks, make the dressing in a bowl: finely grate the zest of the half lemon, squeeze 25 g juice (a little less than 2 tbsp), add the remaining salt (1.7 g), the pepper and half the sumac, and stir to dissolve the salt. Add the olive oil and beat with a fork. Cut the cucumbers into 1–1.5 cm dice, no smaller so they stay crisp, and halve the tomatoes. Thinly slice the spring onions, including the green parts. Pick and roughly chop the parsley and mint leaves. Cut the feta into 1 cm cubes; Bulgarian cheese may crumble a little, which is fine.
4. Fluff the quinoa with a fork, spread on a large dish and immediately drizzle with one-third of the dressing, mixing it through: it absorbs the dressing while hot. Leave to cool for 10 minutes, turning once, until cold to the touch. Taste it on its own: it should already taste good, seasoned all the way through and lemony; add a pinch of salt if needed.
5. To serve immediately, mix the cold quinoa, cucumbers, tomatoes, spring onions, herbs and remaining dressing in the salad bowl. Taste; if the feta is mild, add a pinch of salt to the vegetables. Divide between two plates, place the feta on top without mixing it in, sprinkle it with the remaining sumac and scatter over the pumpkin seeds at the last moment.
6. To pack for the next day, do not mix. Put the dressed, thoroughly cooled quinoa in the bottom of two airtight containers, followed by the cucumbers, tomatoes and spring onions, with the feta on top sprinkled with sumac. Assemble the evening before with whole tomatoes, or the same morning with halved tomatoes. For each container, prepare three small pots: half the chopped herbs in the first; half the seeds in the second, kept completely dry so they stay crisp; and half the remaining dressing in the third. Seal and refrigerate immediately. When ready to eat, add the dressing, herbs and seeds and mix.

Variants and their steps remain below the recipe.