Wild Rice, Celery and Walnut Salad - Outdoor Wednesday

From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...Last summer I had the opportunity to tour a local farm where wild rice is grown. While the Willamette Valley is beautiful, heavy clay soil restricts what can be grown here. Fortunately, the damp clay of the valley floor is perfect for growing grasses and wild rice is, as you know, a water-grass. Years ago a grain specialist at Oregon State University, tossed a handful of wild rice seeds into a pond behind his home to see if they would grow in this climate. A year later he had wild rice in his yard and published an article about it. As a result of the article, some far-thinking farmers planted a water-grass crop and the state's wild rice industry was born. At the moment our wild rice is still under water. In late April or early May, sprouts emerge from the water and rest on its surface. It looks a bit like seaweed at this point. Come June, the rice goes through a growth spurt and begins to stand erect. It will grow until it's about 6 feet tall and set flowers sometime in July. When the flowers set seed, the fields in which the rice grows are drained and the crop is mechanically harvested. Combined rice is allowed to ferment before it's de-hulled, dried, sorted and packaged for sale to locavores. Now the only problem is what to do with it. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of recipes for wild rice available to us. I found the recipe for this salad in the New York Times. I've modified it over and over again and have finally come up with something I really like. This recipe can also be used for brown rice, should you prefer it. The salad should be served at room temperature. Here's the recipe.

Wild Rice, Celery and Walnut Salad...from the kitchen of One Perfect Bite, inspired by Martha Rose Shulman and the New York Times

Ingredients:
4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 cup wild rice, rinsed
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup broken and toasted walnut pieces or 1 cup candied walnuts
1-1/4 cups thinly sliced celery
1/2 cup chopped Italian parsley
Salad Dressing
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
1/4 cup walnut oil
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons low-fat yogurt

Directions:
1) Bring chicken broth to a boil in a large saucepan. Add salt and wild rice. Simmer, covered, for 40 minutes, or until rice is tender and splayed. Drain. Toss with walnuts, celery and parsley.
2) To make salad dressing, place lemon juice, garlic,salt, pepper, sugar, walnut oil, olive oil and yogurt in a jar with a lid. Shake until combined. Pour over wild rice mixture and toss to mix. Adjust seasonings to taste. Yield: 6 servings.

You might also enjoy these recipes:
Bulgur Salad with Pomegranate Dressing
Warm Asian Rice Salad
Asian Bean Sprout Salad

This is being linked to:
Outdoor Wednesday - A Southern Daydreamer

Wild Rice and Mushroom Soup

You are in for a treat if you hear the siren's song and actually try this recipe. Here in the Pacific Northwest we have access to some absolutely incredible ingredients; wild rice, grown locally in the Willamette Valley, and wild mushrooms, free for the picking in the BLM forests surrounding us, are among them. This is not your Mama's mushroom soup. The recipe was developed by Caprial Pence who has a unique ability to transfer the flavors of the Pacific Northwest from head to pot to table with deft surety. I have made a few changes to the recipe and I do want to add a caution for those who decide to make this. The caution - red wine; it can produce a soup with wonderful depth of flavor but the color leaves something to be desired. You might want to substitute a dry white wine for the red or simmer the mushrooms until the red wine has nearly disappeared. Pence uses a lot of wine in her recipes (it's another locally available ingredient) and she uses the good stuff. I'm a "two buck Chuck" gal (for cooking anyway), so I have to be a little more careful and make sure that the wine is reduced until nearly evaporated. I love to serve this with an endive salad and fresh bread on a rainy night. I justify it's extravagance with the argument that wild rice (actually a grain producing grass) is high in fiber, low in sugar and contains no saturated or trans fats. If I'm still feeling guilty I bolster my argument with its protein content - it contains up to 50% more protein than white rice. If you're poor as a church mouse and can't continence such extravagance, use brown rice and swap criminis for the wild mushrooms. You'll have an equally delicious and reasonable facsimile. Give this one a try!

Wild Rice and Mushroom Soup

Ingredients:
Rice:
2 teaspoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 shallot, chopped
1 cup wild rice
3 cups chicken stock
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Mushroom Soup:
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, chopped
3 cups sliced button mushrooms
3 cups sliced wild mushrooms
2 cups red wine
3 potatoes, peeled and diced
6 cups chicken stock
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary
2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
2 tablespoons dried mushroom powder (optional, see Cook's Note below)
2 teaspoons hot pepper sauce (i.e. Tabasco)
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Directions:
1) To prepare the rice, heat the oil in a saucepan over high heat. Add the garlic and shallot and sauté one minute. Add the rice and sauté 1 to 2 minutes. Add the stock and season to taste with salt and pepper. Cover, decrease the heat to medium-low, and simmer for 40 minutes, or until tender.
2) Heat the remainder of the olive oil in a stockpot over high heat until very hot. Add the onion and garlic and lightly sauté for about 2 minutes. Add the mushrooms and sauté until tender, about 5 minutes. Add the red wine and reduce until about 1/2 cup of liquid remains. Add the potatoes and stock and cook until the potatoes are very tender, 10 to 15 minutes.
3) Puree the soup with an immersion blender, or in batches in the bowl of a food processor or in a blender, and then return the soup to the stock pot. Add the cream, rosemary, and thyme and cook for about 15 minutes. Add the rice and hot pepper sauce and season to taste with salt and pepper. Makes 6 servings.

Cook's Note: To make mushroom powder, preheat oven to 275 degrees F. Spread the contents of a 1-1/2-ounce package of dried mushrooms (porcini if possible) on a baking sheet and bake in the oven until completely dried, about 12 minutes. Remove from the oven, let cool and grind in a spice mill until you have a fine powder. Store in a jar for up to six months.