Tuesday

Wild Rice Salad

WRS3

I have been putting off trying Wild Rice in a while, though I’ve been wanting to. My enthusiasm was rekindled when I read about Bee & Jai’s Thai Black Rice pudding and Indira’s Wild rice with eggplant-chole. Both the recipes were simply mouth watering! Don't you agree? Till Bee pointed out I wasnt aware that black rice was different from black wild rice . Thanks for letting me know Bee.

However, lazy me never got around to try until now. Having eaten wild rice as a salad, I wanted to experiment that out first and then move on to including it in the successive courses. Though I didnt quite expect, the outcome was fulfilling. The flavor of the rice was in harmony with its nuttiness as well as the sweetness of the cranberries....not to forget those blanched pine nuts.

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Ingredients

¼ Uncooked Wild rice ( Read more on Wild Rice here. )
2 ½ cups water
¼ cup dried Cranberries
¼ cup Pine nuts, blanched ( I avoided toasted as I didn’t want the crunch to interfere with the chewy nature of the wild rice. )
1 cup freshly squeezed orange juice. ( I used Navel oranges for this recipe. )
1 teaspoon Olive oil
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Salt to taste

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Method

1. Soak wild rice for 30 mins. Cook as recommended on package ( Or) bring to boil ¼ cup wild rice in 2 ½ cups water on HIGH. Cover and simmer for 45 mins or till most of the grains split open. If you are not sure, take a teaspoon of rice and check if the grains are tender to bite.

2. Once done, remove from heat. Drain and add ½ teaspoon of olive oil into the rice. Mix well and set aside.

3. Heat ½ teaspoon of Olive oil in a skillet. Add fresh orange juice and freshly ground black pepper. Allow to simmer for 3- 4 min. Add blanched pine nuts, rice and cook covered for 3-5 min on MEDIUM.

4. Cook uncovered for 3-5 min till most of the liquid is absorbed. Add dried cranberries, toss well.
Serve warm. Its a meal by itself.

This recipe serves 2-3. About ¼ cup of uncooked wild rice is almost equivalent to 2 cups when cooked. I cannot help but agree with what Indira mentioned for every bite requires that you take time to appreciate and relish its flavor.

Bon Appétit!

12 comments:

Raks said...

Sure it looks very nice! Glad you tried this wild rice ...!It looks colorful with the cranberries!

Sihi said...

Thank you Rajeswari.

bee said...

we love black rice. it is especially good as payasam/kheer. it's different from wild rice, though, which is a form of grass.

Sihi said...

Thanks for pointing that out Bee,pardon my ignorance. I have always been under this impression that black rice is same as black wild rice. will try the black rice for sure now.

Suganya said...

Wild rice pulao tastes good too. Wild rice and cranberry soup is one of my fav winter warmers.

KayKat said...

Delicious! Such a fan of black rice - I just tried a black rice pudding a while ago, it was surprisingly tasty!

Divya and Chaya said...

Hi Eskay- nice recipe. We need to try this out soon.

Sihi said...

Thanks for letting me know about the wild rice pulao Suganya. Will check it out.

Sihi said...

Hi Kaykat, thank you for stopping by. I am yet to try black rice. Intend to do so soon.

Sihi said...

Thanks Dee & Chai. How have you two been?

Deborah Dowd said...

This looks really delicious and a great alternative to white rice!

Sihi said...

Thank you Deborah. Sure wild rice is a good change from white rice.