Plant based recipe - wild rice salad
Simple food is always the best. Or at least, this is how we see it in our household. When Vittorio is home at the weekend, usually on a Saturday, he likes to prepare a special dinner, but during the week to keep things easy to prepare and assemble, our meals revolve around grains and veggies, and then we can always add some sort of protein like legumes or eggs, sometimes tofu, most times a yogurt dressing of some sort.
Here below, one of my simple everyday recipes, which can be easily adapted to what you have in your pantry! I combined some sweet ingredients to more bitter ones, so that although extremely simple... it remains a dish rich in flavor and highly satisfying!
RECIPE WILD RICE SALAD WITH A HERBAL DRESSING
Ingredients (for 2): 160 gr wild rice 1/2 pumpkin cut into cubes
2 sliced zucchini
a teaspoon of raisins
a handful of rocket salad
a handful of radicchio
a handful of mixed walnuts/hazelnuts/almonds or other dried fruit of your choice
(optional) 2/3 taralli or a teaspoon of breadcrumbs
- For the dressing: a batch of mixed herbs of your choice (I used parsley, wild fennel and thyme)
1/2 finely chopped fresh clove of garlic ground black pepper 1/2 cup of e.v.olive oil
Method:
Roughly chop the herbs and work in a mortar with the garlic, the ground pepper and the oil until you get a nice saucy dressing.
Place the sliced pumpkin and zucchini in a baking pan, add a few drops of e.v.o.oil and bake for 30 minutes at 180°.
Bring a pot of water to the boil, add some sea salt and the rice and let cook at medium heat for the time indicated on the pack. When ready drain and keep aside.
In a serving bowl, combine rice, baked vegetables, and then add the radicchio, the rocket salad, the mixed nuts, the raisins and dress with your herbal condiment.
To add some crunchiness, add some breadcrumbs or broken taralli :)
