In my ongoing and intermittently successful quest to feed myself at lunchtime without becoming a pauper, I’ve come across a few truly delicious recipes that have joined the relatively exclusive cache of things I might make again. This rice dish is one of them. Admittedly, the ingredient list looks a little off-color at first glance (radishes and ricotta salata anyone?) but I swear that this really works and makes for a delicious lunch you’ll actually want to fetch from the office refrigerator and not abandon for a $14 salad at the last minute or leave it at home “accidentally”.
Perhaps one reason I like this salad so much is because I can’t get enough of radishes. As a teenager someone told me that if I were a vegetable I’d be a radish. An acquired taste? I took it as a compliment. Frankly, if you knew me in high school you’d probably think my being labeled a radish was pretty generous when taking into account some of the other apt vegetables out there. Like a rotten-to-the-core brussels sprout. Or a particularly gnarled celery root.
Anyway, it’s not so much that I identify with the radishes in this salad but that I am always pleased when I find them used in delicious and unexpected ways. When I lived in Nepal, for example, radish curry was my favorite thing to eat, so much so that “radish” is one of the few words I remember in Nepali (along with, for reasons unknown, the word for “meerkat”). Raw, cooked, whole, chopped, I love radishes in all forms, shapes and sizes.
Maybe another reason I think this salad is a winner is because it’s a grain salad that’s not made out of quinoa. I feel similarly about quinoa to how I feel about kale. I know it is good for me but I feel like it’s reminding me of that while I’m chewing it. Black rice? Now that’s a grain you don’t see every day, and in addition to the pretty dramatic look it brought when mixed up with the bright pink and white radishes, it has an awesome chewy texture as well. Give this salad a shot – I promise it’s going to keep you full, keep you out of the line of investment bankers at your local Just Salad outpost and make you the envy of your co-workers who will be wondering what black rice is and why it’s not in their lunch bowls.
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 2 tablespoons Sherry vinegar or red wine vinegar
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 1 cup black rice
- Kosher salt
- 2 cups mixed radishes, sliced, quartered
- Freshly ground black pepper
- 2 oz. ricotta salata, thinly sliced
- 1/4 cup chopped unsalted, roasted almonds
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh dill
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives
Instructions
- Combine rice and 1 3/4 cups water in a medium saucepan; season with salt. Bring to a boil on stove over high. Reduce heat, cover saucepan, and simmer until the rice is tender and liquid is absorbed, 45-50 minutes. Remove from heat, fluff rice, and let sit, covered, for 10 minutes. Let cool.
- Just before serving, toss rice and radishes with dressing in a large bowl; season with salt and pepper. Add ricotta salata, almonds, dill and chives, and toss.
Notes
https://www.thekitchenchronicles.com/2016/03/04/black-rice-salad-with-radishes-and-ricotta/
