Preparing Farro for trail

In an attempt to broaden my selection of tasty food, I have tried and like Farro. It's nice to have variety and supposedly the Roman legions "lived" off of this stuff. It has a unique slightly sweet and nutty flavor and the pearled variety can be boiled for 15 and set before eaten. After 15 min, it has a nice "al dente" texture. 15 min is still too much time for treks where I am concerned about weight and was wondering if anyone else has used this grain and had a way to prep it to cut down cooking time. My next attempt will be to cook it and then try to dehydrate the stuff. Any thoughts?

Chris

OK, I looked up "faro grain," figuring it was wheat related. After all, farina is a hot cereal, made from wheat. Yep, this is an ancient precursor to our modern wheat varieties.

I would imagine one could cook and dehydrate faro for trail use, but it still may require some more cooking to fully rehydrate, due to its density. You might try whirling the dried product through a blender since small pieces often rehydrate faster, or try bulgur. Bulgur is cooked, dehydrated whole wheat that has similar nutrional values to brown rice and can be used much like "instant" rice.

CM

Farro is easy to cook and dry. Really, go that way. Also, currently Trader Joe's is carrying 10 minute pre-cooked farro in bags.
Pearled farro isn't my fave though, I like the full bran, it takes a good 45 minutes to an hour though

Btw, you can use it in most any barley or wheat berry recipe.

Thanks for the responses! I really like the grain's texture and running it through the blender makes it sort of a sticky mess. As a whole grain, it is a new addition to our diet; you can almost treat it like pasta if you cook it right.

sarbar, if it is easy to dry, then I'll just go back to the full bran I have for the test. I tried the pearled because of the 15 min cook time and I thought even that was pretty good. I can give the leftover pearled to my son (who will not cook something for 45+ min) since he liked it so much.

Cook it till tender, then dry :-)

Btw, for chopping up grains, I know it isn't cheap but wow do I love the Vitamix dry container for my Vitamix blender. I freeze my grains, then grind (prevents over heating of the grains). Super fast too!

PS: The stuff at Costco in bags by Earthly is pearled if anyone is looking at it :-)