Carrot and Rice Salad with Ginger Sumac Dressing

I feel as though Nancy Silverton and I go way back except that, of course, I’ve never met her. In 2007, I read her Breads from the La Brea Bakery book and soon thereafter made my sourdough starter that I still use today. I’ve made many of the breads from that book and have even gotten comfortable adjusting recipes here and there. I make a whole grain version of the bagels from that book. And, it’s that voice of Nancy Silverton that I think I know, the voice of her writing from 1996 when that book was published. All these years later, the voice of her latest books is a little different. She’s having an amazing culinary career and experience and passage of time have brought clear preferences for certain flavors or techniques. Her latest book is Mozza at Home: More than 150 Crowd-Pleasing Recipes for Relaxed, Family-Style Entertaining, and I received a review copy. It’s full of recipes she turns to for entertaining both at her home in Los Angeles and at her second home in Umbria in Italy. The book includes nineteen different party menus with various side dishes that would go well with each theme or main course. If you’re planning a dinner party, you could pick and choose how many and which side dishes to prepare. Then, Desserts has a chapter all to itself. The idea was that most of the desserts could be paired with multiple menus, and you can choose from the whole collection. For main courses, the menus include dishes like Saturday Night Chicken Thighs with Italian Sausage, Sicilian Swordfish Spiedini, Dean Fearing’s Frito Pie, and Lamb and Chicken Tikka Kebabs. I got caught up in all the various salads as side dishes. The Farro Salad with Fresh Herbs and Feta is like a Greek salad with farro. The Couscous Salad with Root Vegetables and Ricotta Salata is perfect for fall with carrots, parsnips, and radicchio. And, there’s a Mixed Grain and Seed Salad made with quinoa, wild rice, and fregola sarda. I couldn’t resist starting with the Carrot and Rice Salad with Ginger Sumac Dressing for the seasonally appropriate color scheme. 

There are a lot of interesting things going on with this rice salad. Three different types of rice are suggested. You could limit that to one instead, or use two types of rice as I did. I used black rice and red rice and skipped the brown rice. Each type of rice is cooked separately and then cooled by spreading on a baking sheet. The second main ingredient here is the carrots, and they need to be cut into short julienne pieces. The process for cutting the carrots is suggested as follows: “cut the carrots into 3- to 4-inch segments. Using a mandoline, slice the segments into 1/16 inch thick lengthwise. Stack the slices and slice with a knife into 1/16 inch batons.” I employed the carrot slicing trick of making angled cuts that you stack and julienne rather than pulling out the mandoline. I don’t remember where I learned that trick, but it’s a great one. The third main ingredient for this salad is a whole cup of flaxseeds that were toasted in a dry skillet and cooled. The dressing was made with lime juice, sumac, champagne vinegar, grated fresh ginger, and red chile flakes. I believe there’s a typo in the book for the quantity of sumac. I used almost a tablespoon not one half cup. That was whisked together and set aside. The cooled rice was combined in a big bowl with the julienned carrots and flaxseeds. The mixture was drizzled with olive oil and tossed to coat. The dressing was added, and the mixture was tossed again to distribute. 

The bright, zippy dressing livens up the rice and makes this a fun salad. The flaxseeds add a nice nutty richness to go with the freshness of the carrots. I’m not sure if I’ll keep working through all the salads I want to try or maybe move on to the Eggplant Lasagne next. Then, there’s the Desserts chapter to devour. For today, I’m happy to enjoy the orange and black of this dish. Happy Halloween! 

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Red Rice Salad with Blueberries

I just learned about AmazonEncore which is a new publishing program that re-introduces overlooked books to wider audiences. Books are chosen based on customer reviews and are then re-published and distributed via Amazon, the Kindle Store, Audible.com, and independent bookstores. I was sent a review copy of The Berry Bible by Janie Hibler which is a James Beard Foundation book award nominee and was just re-released by AmazonEncore. It’s part berry encyclopedia covering every berry you can name and several you might not know and part recipe book including sweet and savory dishes for all those berries. And, you could win a copy of the book. Just leave a comment with your email on this post before Saturday 24 July 2010 at 8:00am when I’ll randomly select a winner and contact that winner for mailing information. AmazonEncore will ship the book anywhere, so this giveaway is open to everyone.

As I read through the encyclopedia portion of the book, I learned the differences between highbush blueberries, the kind that grow in Texas and many other parts of the US, and lowbush blueberries which are found in the northeastern US and in British Columbia. I also learned about cloudberries which grow in sub-arctic regions and have a very high level of vitamin C. Jostaberries are a hybrid of currants and gooseberries, and the information about every berry’s history, habitat, and common names in different parts of the world can be found here. The types of recipes you’ll find are categorized by beverages, breads, soups and salads, main courses, sauces, preserving, frozen treats, pies and tarts, cakes, and other sweet treats. A few dishes caught my eye like grilled paprika chicken with blackberry sauce, American barbeque sauce made with marionberries or blackberries, blueberry and toasted walnut conserve, spicy cranberry-horseradish relish, and chocolate-espresso hazelnut cake with raspberry glaze. There are recipes for all seasons as frozen and dried berries are mentioned in addition to fresh. I was intrigued by the savory use of berries in the salads and main courses, and my first stop was the red rice salad with blueberries.

I used red jasmine rice, but I think brown rice would be delicious here as well. The cooked rice was cooled and combined with toasted hazelnuts, dried cranberries, dried chopped apricots, and minced red onion. The dressing was made with lime juice, honey, ginger, lime zest, olive oil, and salt and pepper. The dressing was added to the salad with fresh blueberries which were gently folded into the mix. Then, the rice salad was served over lightly dressed salad greens. It seemed like this might be a rather sweet salad with so much dried fruit in addition to the fresh blueberries, but the onion and olive oil balanced the flavors well. The varied textures from chewy fruits to crunchy nuts and the mix of sweet, tart, and savory tastes made this salad great. Now, I’m thinking ahead to fall when I can try the persimmon, apple, and pickled cranberry salad and to next spring for the roasted asparagus with raspberry vinaigrette.

UPDATE:
Random number generator selected "10." Esi from Dishing Up Delights has won the book. Congratulations Esi!


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