AUTUMN FARRO AND FUYU PERSIMMON SALAD 

This salad is delicious and nutritious, good and good for you. It became one of our most popular lunch dishes at Eccolo, my Berkeley restaurant, along with our chopped salad. Farro was a terrific luncheon salad on its own; we offered it adorned by chicken breast, grilled steak, or fish as a main course; it was an accompaniment to many other popular dishes. In fact, it’s a kind of conceptual variation of the chopped salad – small pieces, contrasting textures and colors, exiting flavor combinations – chopped salad without all the chopping, if you will. 

Farro is an ancient grain grown widely in Western Europe and depending on type known by several different names: spelt, emmer, and einkorn. It is a commonly used grain in Italian cooking and has become well-known in the U.S. in recent years. The farro in this salad is semi-pearled, which means part if its bran has been removed to reduce its cooking time. If you prefer whole grain farrow, an online source for special grains is Anson Mills, in Columbia, SC, who have it available in two sizes – small and medium – as well as a roasted version, and there are several sources in Washington state including Bluebird Grain Farms.

Fuyu persimmons are the hard, apple-like persimmons, different to custardy, too-tennis-to-eat-raw hachiya persimmons that are baked into persimmon pudding. Fuyu usually appear around the end of October and continue for several months. 

A wonderful part of the salad is its seasonality – the fruits change through the year, determining the character of the salad. In the fall you can prepare it with persimmons and pomegranate – especially delicious – as in this recipe. In winter, apples, pears, and citrus, especially kumquats, become the sweet-sour crunch, and radicchio replaces the cabbage. In summer, berries appear and continue until the fall, when one finds walnuts, almonds, and pumpkin seeds to add. It’s an expansive, accommodating recipe. Even the grains can change; if you can’t find farro, look for brown rice, quinoa, barley, or bulghur wheat. All will work well. 

Makes 5 cups of salad, about 4 portions

2 cups cooked farro 
1 cup Fuyu persimmon, cored, skin on, thinly sliced, about 1 persimmon 
½ cup pomegranate seeds, about ½ a large pomegranate
½ cup celery, thinly sliced 
½ cup thinly sliced scallions
½ cup raw walnut halves, crushed, or ½ cup pinenuts, lightly toasted 
1 tsp orange zest, grated 
½ teaspoon sea salt 
1 cup thinly sliced cabbage (see instructions below) 
Optional: ½ Haas avocado, cubed; 3 TBL blue cheese, crumbled with a fork; Red Verona chicory, thinly sliced 

 
Dressing:
3 TBL rice wine vinegar 
1 TBL champagne vinegar 
4 TBL grapeseed or avocado oil 
¼ tsp salt 
½ tsp ground Tellicherry pepper
½ tsp sugar 

Place cooked farro, persimmons, pomegranate, celery, scallions, walnuts, orange zest, and salt in a large bowl. Cut cabbage into eights, then slice thinly and add to bowl. Whisk together the ingredients for the dressing, or shake them vigorously in a jar. Pour dressing over salad and toss salad well. If using avocado or blue cheese, stir the gently into the salad without turning them onto mush. The pieces should remain discrete. When serving, ensure the ingredients are distributed evenly among the bowls.  

©2020 Christopher Lee