Wild Rice Salad

This is another recipe from the cooking class the other day. We had a short discussion about this salad at the December cooking class, when one of the members mentioned it, that she orders it every time she goes to a restaurant here in Newport Beach, called Gulfstream (no website, but it's on the corner of Pacific Coast Highway and MacArthur and you can read lots of reviews of the restaurant if you search online). It's a very lovely, upscale restaurant, and quite pricey. I've never been there, although when it first opened I did go in and read the menu. I don't know why I haven't been back to try it, but just haven't. But this salad definitely will encourage me. Our instructor, Tarla Fallgatter, loves to try to dissect a restaurant dish, and she had the salad there, promptly came home and worked out her version. We all really liked it. A lot.

I don't seem to make rice salads much. I don't actually make many carb-rich dishes anymore since my DH and I both prefer to limit our carbs. But this tasted so darned good, I think I'll have to. What made this salad was the dressing. Tarla explained that she prefers to use a fruit-based vinegar on salads such as this one. She said we could substitute champagne vinegar, but she finds it much more acetic (meaning too acetic for her tastes), so encouraged all of us to run right out and find some pear vinegar. Lo and behold, I just happen to have some pear vinegar. If any of you read my posting about the contents of my oil and vinegar cupboards, you'll understand why I say that. I'd have been amazed that I didn't have it. Sure enough, I have a bottle (unopened, I might add) of Sparrow Lane D'Anjou Pear Vinegar. I think I bought it in Healdsburg last spring at a cute eclectic market on the plaza.

Cook's Notes: Tarla liked adding the dried blueberries, but some others in the class thought they were too sweet. So, use dried fruit of your choice. She also suggested that if the red onion is really pungent (you'll know because you'll tear up more from an older, sharper onion) soak the onion in water for about 5 minutes before adding to the salad. Be sure to use fresh, raw corn. Not frozen corn. But note there's only 1/4 cup of corn in this recipe, so that's only one ear or less.

Wild Rice Salad
Recipe: Tarla Fallgatter, cooking instructor
Servings: 6 (small)
SALAD:
1 cup wild rice
1/2 cup basmati rice
1/4 cup corn kernels -- fresh
1/4 cup dried blueberries
1/4 cup red onion -- minced
1/4 cup pecans -- toasted
3 tablespoons Italian parsley
DRESSING:
2 tablespoons pear vinegar -- or Champagne
1 tablespoon Sherry vinegar
1 teaspoon mustard
1 pinch curry powder
4 tablespoons olive oil salt and pepper to taste
1. For this salad, you want 1 cup of COOKED wild rice and 1/2 cup of COOKED basmati rice. Proportions shown in the ingredient list probably aren't accurate.
2. Mix salad ingredients together in a bowl.
3. Dressing: whisk ingredients together and pour over rice mixture. Serve.
Per Serving (assuming you eat all the rice and wild rice listed in the ingredient list, which you won't, in this dish anyway): 293 Calories; 13g Fat (38.4% calories from fat); 6g Protein; 40g Carbohydrate; 3g Dietary Fiber; 0mg Cholesterol; 24mg Sodium. Exchanges: 2 Grain(Starch); 0 Lean Meat; 0 Vegetable; 1/2 Fruit; 2 1/2 Fat; 0 Other Carbohydrates.
Printer-friendly recipe, click title at top.