Wild Rice Cakes with Smoked Whitefish and Bean Spread

As someone who enjoys seeking out the best of local and seasonal foods, I was interested to learn more about true, indigenous, North American ingredients and recipes made with them. In The Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen by Sean Sherman, everything used would have been available to Native Americans. I recently received a review copy of the book. There are no European-introduced foods like wheat flour, dairy, sugar, or domestic pork or beef. Many of the ingredients used here could be foraged, but there are also suggestions for store-bought versions and substitutions for harder to find items. And, modern conveniences like food processors and other appliances are perfectly welcome in creating these dishes. Still, these recipes result in dishes that are true to the indigenous way of eating which just happens to be low-glycemic, high-protein, low salt, often plant-based, dairy-free, refined sugar-free, and gluten-free. Before reading this book, it hadn’t occurred to me that Native Americans used duck and quail eggs rather than chicken eggs, and that’s what’s used here. Although, large chicken eggs can be substituted for duck. There’s a recipe for Deviled Duck Eggs made with smoked salt and ground sumac and another for Old-Fashioned Cornmeal Mush with Poached (Duck) Eggs that look divine. The three sisters ingredients, corn, beans, and squash, figure prominently and in interesting ways. There’s Stuffed Squash Blossoms dredged in masa, Hominy Cakes served with Smoked Duck, and Hearty Mushroom Sweet Potato and Bean Soup. The proteins include fresh water fish and game like grouse, pheasant, rabbit, venison, and elk. And, there are several sweet treats made with maple syrup, maple sugar, and honey. I can’t wait to try the Maple Squash Sorbet with Cranberry Sauce in which roasted squash is pureed with maple syrup and cider before being churned into sorbet. First though, as a long-time fan of wild rice, I couldn’t pass up the versatile Wild Rice Cakes. They could have been served as a dessert with maple syrup and berries, but I went the savory route with a topping of Smoked Whitefish and Bean Spread. 

To make the wild rice cakes, you first need cooked wild rice. I sometimes have some in my freezer, but not this time. I cooked enough to use for this recipe and to freeze a bit for another day. The cooked wild rice is re-cooked until very soft, and then it’s drained and pureed in a food processor. The resulting dough is then mixed with salt and some cooked wild rice that was reserved before pureeing before being shaped into patties and fried on each side until browned. For the Smoked Whitefish spread, you need some cooked beans, and in this case my freezer came through for me. I had stored away some yellow-eye beans that worked well here but just about any type of bean would be fine. Smoked white fish was prepped by removing the skin and flaking the fish. I started by pureeing the beans in the food processor since they should be made smooth, then I pulsed the fish with some salt, oil, and ground sumac. I wanted the fish to retain some texture. The fish and bean spread was spooned onto the crispy wild rice cakes and topped with some sunflower sprouts. 

The whole grains of rice added to the pureed dough before making the cakes gave them great texture. They were crispy-edged and chewy in the middle. And, they made fantastic vehicles for the smoked whitefish spread. As with all the recipes in this book, straightforward and nutritious ingredients became a flavorful dish that could be served as elegantly or as simply as you wish. These very traditional foods are presented in a way that’s perfectly-suited to the here and now. 

Wild Rice Cakes 
Psíŋ Aǧúyapi Sáka na Hoǧáŋwičhašašni Ašótkaziyapi nakúŋ Waȟpé Skúya Yužápi  
Recipe reprinted from The Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen  by Sean Sherman with Beth Dooley (University of Minnesota Press, 2017) Copyright 2017 Ghost Dancer, LLC. All rights reserved. Used by permission of the University of Minnesota Press.

Makes about 4 to 6 cakes 

These are our go-to cakes for breakfast, as a snack, and as the base for a well-seasoned bison braise or duck. They’re especially good topped with smoked fish and our bright lemony Sorrel Sauce. Make them tiny for an appetizer or big for dessert slathered in maple-berry sauce. The recipe for these couldn’t be simpler. It’s just overcooked wild rice, pureed into a thick dough. We like to stir in a little cooked wild rice for texture. Once shaped, these will keep several days in the refrigerator, so feel free to make them ahead. Leftovers may be re-crisped in a low oven until warmed through. 

2 cups cooked wild rice 
About 3 cups water 
Pinch salt 
Generous pinch maple sugar 
3 to 4 tablespoons sunflower oil or more as needed 

Put 1 1/2 cups cooked wild rice and water into a saucepan, reserving 1/2 cup. Place over high heat, bring to a boil, and reduce the heat to a simmer. Cook until the rice is very soft and the water has evaporated. Drain. In a food processor fitted with a steel blade, puree the rice into a sticky dough. Place the dough into a medium bowl and work in the salt, sugar, and the remaining cooked rice. 

Scoop out a scant 1/4 cup dough for each patty and shape to rounds about 1/2 inch thick. Heat the oil in a heavy skillet and brown the patties about 5 to 8 minutes per side until lightly browned. Transfer the patties to a baking sheet and place in a warm oven until ready to serve. 

Smoked Whitefish and White Bean Spread 
Hoǧáŋ Ašótkaziyapi na Omníča Ská Iyúltȟuŋ 

Makes 1-1/2 cups 

This creamy spread is great with our Amaranth Crackers, or piled high on Corn Cakes, or Wild Rice Cakes. This is the filling for Stuffed Squash Blossoms. 

1 cup shredded smoked whitefish or trout 
1/2 cup Cedar-Braised Beans, or other cooked beans 
2 tablespoons sunflower oil 
Pinch sumac 
Pinch maple sugar 

Put the whitefish, beans, and oil into a food processor fitted with a steel blade and pulse to create a rough, thick consistency. Season to taste with the sumac and maple sugar. 

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Wild Rice and Mushroom Soup

Last fall, I read The Man Who Changed the Way We Eat: Craig Claiborne and the American Food Renaissance after receiving a review copy and learned all about Craig Claiborne’s life. I didn’t realize that his approach to food writing was so revolutionary at the time. After studying at the Ecole Hoteliere de Lausanne in Switzerland, he sought out “the sublime” in cuisine, service, and dining experiences, and that’s what inspired his writing. He found disappointment in a lot of restaurants, but when his expectations were met, he was thrilled to share what he’d found. He had sophisticated taste that required teaching his readers about unfamiliar foods while not alienating them. After writing pieces for Gourmet, he became the food editor at The New York Times in 1957. His first NY Times Cookbook was published in 1961, and I have the revised edition from 1991. I’d never sat down with this cookbook before since there isn’t a lot of introductory info or many recipe headnotes. But, after reading about Claiborne’s life, I was interested in finding out what recipes were in this book I’d had for several years. There are complicated and fancy things like Truffled Pate and Lobster L’Americaine, but there are also plenty of simple salads, pastas, vegetable dishes, and homey desserts. Most of the recipes have no notes or explanations about their origin, but the wild rice and mushroom soup did. It’s actually called Julie Wilson’s Wild Rice and Mushroom Soup, and Claiborne wrote that it’s “one of the greatest soups ever created.” He also pointed out that it’s a “bit time-consuming,” and he was right about that, but it was definitely worth the effort. I marked this page back in October and just got around to trying this lovely soup. There’s a version of this recipe online at the NY Times, and the quantities are slightly different from those in the book, but otherwise it’s the same. 

This soup can easily be vegetarian if vegetable stock is used, but the recipe was written with chicken stock. There are a few steps that require waiting or simmering, but those things can be happening at the same time. You start by rehydrating dried mushrooms with hot water. While those sit for at least 20 minutes, you can start cooking the wild rice which takes almost an hour. I found some nice, long grains of wild rice from Minnesota, and it was cooked in boiling water with a little butter. Next, onion, garlic, and leeks can be chopped while waiting on the mushrooms and rice. Once the dried mushrooms were hydrated, they were drained into a bowl so the soaking liquid could be saved. The mushrooms were rinsed under running water to remove any grit, and they were squeezed dry before being chopped. Tough stems were discarded. The soaking liquid was poured through a sieve lined with cheesecloth and reserved. Moving right along, olive oil was heated in a Dutch oven, and the onion, garlic, and leeks were sauteed until tender. The chopped, dried mushrooms were added followed by flour. This mixture was cooked for a few minutes before white wine, stock, salt and pepper, some Tabasco (I prefer Crystal), and the mushroom soaking liquid were added. This was brought to a boil and then left to simmer for an hour. Yes, this soup takes some time. At this point, it could be refrigerated until the next day. After simmering, the soup was pureed in batches in a blender. It went back into the Dutch oven and half-and-half was added. As it was re-warmed, fresh mushrooms were sliced and sauteed in butter. Once cooked, they were sprinkled with lemon juice and sherry. The cooked, fresh mushrooms were added to the pureed soup along with the cooked wild rice. Thyme and parsley were added, and the soup was ready to be served. 

Wild rice has always been one of my favorite grains, and I don’t cook it often enough. I love the chewy texture, and it’s a perfect match with mushrooms. This is a hearty and slightly decadent soup, but it’s a meal of a soup. There are layers of flavor from the dried mushrooms to the wine to the herbs added at the very end. I’m glad to have learned more about Craig Claiborne’s life, and I look forward to cooking more things he recommended.

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Quinoa Salad with Dried Iranian Lime

It was last June when I first learned about dried limes. There was a story in the NY Times about their use in cuisine from Iran and Iraq, exactly how they’re used both whole and ground, and their unique, complex flavor of citrus with a slight funky edge. I immediately called Phoenicia, our nearby Middle Eastern market, learned they did have dried limes for sale, and ran straight there to get them. Dried limes are just that, whole, dehydrated, sun-dried limes. You should wash them before using them. Then, you can either pierce them and drop them whole into soups or beans as they cook, or you can chop them and then grind them in a spice grinder or coffee mill. If you grind the chopped pieces, you should shake the ground lime through a sieve to remove any large, hard bits. I tried two of the recipes from the NY Times article, the lentil salad and the broiled shrimp, but I never got around to mentioning them here. I recall that for the lentil dish, the dried limes were pierced and placed in the pot with the lentils while they cooked. The flavor they imparted was very subtle, and if I hadn’t known I’d used the dried limes I don’t think I would have picked out their flavor in the dish. For the shrimp, a paste was made with ground dried lime, other spices, and olive oil, and that paste was used as a rub on the shrimp. In that dish, the flavor from the limes was present, interesting, and enjoyable. I intended to try that again and grill the shrimp rather than broil it, but I just never got to it. All of this explains why I was so eager to try this quinoa salad from the book Plenty. I already had dried limes in my pantry, and I couldn’t wait to use them again.

There are a several great-looking mixed grain salads in that book. Here, quinoa, wild rice, and basmati rice were mixed with roasted chunks of sweet potato, herbs, sliced green onions, and feta. I had just received sweet potatoes and green onions from Farmhouse Delivery, so I was set. I bought Canadian Lake wild rice, which is a long variety that requires about 55 minutes to cook. I cooked it in a large saucepan with plenty of extra water, and added the basmati rice after about 15 minutes of simmering. When the two grains were cooked, they were drained and placed in a large mixing bowl. Meanwhile, sweet potatoes were peeled, chopped into cubes and roasted with a coating of olive oil and a sprinkling of salt and pepper. For the last 10 minutes of roasting time, the quinoa was cooked in simmering water, and then it was drained and added to the rices. Dried limes were chopped, ground, and sieved, and two tablespoons were used in the salad. Last, olive oil was heated in a small skillet, sliced garlic was added followed by chopped sage and oregano, and I was lucky to still have some sage and oregano in my herb garden after our cold spell. The oil with garlic and herbs was poured over the grain mixture followed by the roasted sweet potatoes and the oil left on the baking sheet, the sliced green onion, a little lemon juice, some shredded mint, the ground dried lime, and cubes of feta. Everything was carefully mixed so as not to break up the sweet potato or feta.

This was such a pleasant mix of nutty, chewy grains, and the garlic, onion, and herbs hit all the right flavor notes. The dried lime with its concentrated citrus was well-matched with the sweet potato and feta. You could easily add more of one thing or less of another here, but I wouldn’t change a thing next time I make this. It was a meal of a salad, and since it makes a nice, large quantity, it will be several meals. I’m already looking forward to the next one for lunch.

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Wild Rice Salad with Goat Cheese and Dried Fruit

I won’t be cooking for Thanksgiving this year, but if I were, this salad would be on the menu. Every time I plan a Thanksgiving menu, I always want a crisp, fresh, yet autumnal salad dish to squeeze in next to the heavy gratin, the rich gravy, and the warm vegetables. Actually, I think I’ve been searching for just this sort of thing for years. I don’t know why this part of the menu is always such a stumbling block, but I never seem to find the right salad for the occasion. I suppose since I'm not distracted by planning a full menu right now, I was able to dream up this salad. The necessary components, to my thinking, were a nutty grain like wild rice, crunchy vegetable matter, sweet dried fruits, an actual nut or two, some creamy, crumbled goat cheese, and a vinaigrette with a hint of spice. What actually happened:

2 c cooked and chilled, wild rice
2 shallots, minced
3/4 c celery with leaves, chopped
3 T parsley leaves, chopped
1/4 c dried apricots, chopped
1/2 c dried cranberries
1/2 c walnuts, chopped and toasted
1/2 c pepitas, toasted
4 c baby spinach leaves
4 oz goat cheese, crumbled

4 T champagne vinegar
1 T dijon mustard
1/2 t cayenne pepper
1 t ground cumin
1/2 c extra virgin olive oil
Salt and black pepper to taste

-in a large mixing bowl, whisk together vinegar, dijon, cayenne, and cumin and continue whisking while slowly drizzling in olive oil until emulsified; season to taste with salt and black pepper
-to the large bowl, add wild rice, shallots, celery, all but two teaspoons of parsley, apricots, cranberries, walnuts, and all but a tablespoon of pepitas and toss to combine
-on a large serving platter, spread spinach leaves, spoon rice mixture over spinach, top with crumbled goat cheese and reserved pepitas and parsley

The cayenne in the vinaigrette met the sweetness of the dried fruits nicely, and the celery and parsley brightened the mix. The pale, green, inner celery stalks with leaves attached are the best. I was happy with the combo of cranberries and apricots, and the walnuts and pepitas worked well with the nuttiness of the wild rice. At last, I've found the elusive Thanksgiving salad.

This salad experiment was performed simultaneously with an Oktoberfest beer tasting. First up was Sierra Nevada Harvest. Here, the flavor was all about the hops. The second, and our favorite of this tasting, was Ayinger Oktoberfest-Marzen. Rich, full-flavored without being too heavy, it had a smooth, evenness that we will definitely return to throughout the season. And, some trivia: Oktoberfest beers are brewed in March to be ready for fall festivals, hence the appearance of Marzen on labels.

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