Black Rice Salad With Cherries And Snow Peas

At first there is something a bit forbidding about a bowl of black rice salad. It is so dark and mysterious looking and if you are not familiar with black rice it doesn't even look that tasty. Add to that the legend that it used to be forbidden rice...available in China only to the elite. It's a wonder anyone eats it.

If you do, you will know that this is a first rate dish. The rice is nutty tasting and it goes so well with the bright citrus notes of the lime and orange, with the sweet cherries, the delicate snow peas and the crunch of sliced almonds. It's an unusual combination, but delicious.  I added grilled chicken, cut into bite sized pieces, to the salad to make it even more of a main dish. Sweetie at two portions and not just to get more chicken.

Surprise your family with this dish or take it to a pot luck or picnic. If you leave out the chicken it can sit at room temperature for quite a while. Black rice can be found at Costco according to a friend, or I/m pretty sure you can buy it at Trader Joe's. I've had my bag of rice a few years and I got it there, so it's likely they still have it. You can absolutely buy it on Amazon. This recipe makes enough for a crowd, but it keeps well, too, so it can make a couple of meals if your numbers are smaller.

So whats with the photo at the top? Well, I forgot to take any photos of the rice dish, so you get to see my photo from last week's trip to the redwoods. The photo below is from my 2012 post of a similar rice dish. Pretend that you see cucumber moons, snow peas and sliced almonds instead of celery, OK?

Black Forbidden Rice with Cherries
based on a recipe of Giada De Laurentiis'

Serves 6 - 8

Rice:
3 1/2 cups water
2 cups black forbidden rice 
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon dried orange zest or fresh orange zest
a few drops orange oil (skip if you use fresh orange zest)
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons finely chopped Italian parsley
1 green onion, sliced, white part only

1 small cucumber, peeled if peel is tough, cut into thin half moons
6 oz fresh cherries, pitted and halved
2-3 oz. fresh snow peas, ends trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
2 chicken breasts, grilled and cut into bite sized pieces (optional)
1/3 cup sliced almonds

Dressing:

1/4 cup Champagne vinegar 

1/4 cup olive oil 

3 tablespoons honey

2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

1 tablespoon soy sauce 

1 teaspoon grated lime zest

Directions
For the rice: In a medium saucepan, bring the water, rice, ground ginger, orange zest (and orange oil if using) and salt to a boil over medium heat. Reduce the heat to a simmer , cover the pan, and cook until the rice is tender, about 30 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and set aside for 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork and place in a large serving bowl. Let cool to barely warm.

Add Italian parsley, green onion, cucumber, cherries, snow peas and chicken breast pieces (if using)  to the serving bowl with the cooked rice. Stir to combine.

For the dressing : In a medium bowl, whisk together the champagne vinegar, oil, honey, lime juice, soy sauce and lime zest until smooth.

Pour the dressing over the rice and cherry mixture and toss gently to combine.  When ready to serve, stir in the sliced almonds. Serve warm or at room temperature. 

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme

Today I had a surpise visit from someone I became friends with when I lived in the open ward looney bin that was the City of Berkeley. By now it might be a very sane place. Back then there were mentally ill people wandering the streets, having been released to the community by then Governor Ronald Reagan (before he became President) who felt that mental health was a 'neighborhood problem', which is what it became in time. The politics were a bit nutty, too. Good news is I learned to think crazy which has come in handy in later life more often than one might expect.

It took guts and good will for this friend from long ago to drive up the highway and show up. We have been on the outs for a few years. This is an exceedingly rare thing for me so I've probably behaved badly in the process. Hugs were exchanged and we talked and laughed. I'm glad she came. Sometimes doors you thought you have shut spring open again unexpectedly.

When she arrived I had just begun to make a chicken dish for dinner. This is the kind of dish you can usually make with ingredients that your have on hand in your pantry and freezer. Veggies from your garden or from the market or farmer's market work well in this stew. For seasoning not only did I saute' lots of onions and some celery and chopped carrots, but I added flat leaf parsley, dried sage, rosemary and thyme, plus some pepper. Brought back the old song and that seemed appropriate somehow.

This made a nice stew with lots of veggies, some of which cooked with the chicken and some were added toward the end of cooking. I like my stew with a thickened broth, but you could serve it as is, although it might be more of a stew or chowder that way. With a few slices of the chunky zucchini bread we had a fine, easy meal.

Hope you had a great weekend! My your surprises be as welcome as mine was.

Scarborough Fair Chicken Stew

Serves 4

1 large onion, chopped
1/2 cup chopped carrots
2 ribs celery, chopped

1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat leaf or Italian parsley
1/2 teaspoon dried sage
1/2 teaspoon rosemary
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
2 cups chicken broth
4 boneless skiness chicken breasts, cut in large dice (bite sized pieces)
1 large or 2 medium Idaho type potatoes, cut in cubes about 1/2 inch across, peeled if you like
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup fresh or frozen corn off the cob
1 cup fresh or frozen green beans, in bite sized pieces
1 cup fresh or frozen green peas
enough flour and water in a slurry to thicken the broth, as desired

Saute' the onions, carrots and celery in the olive oil until the onions are transluscent, about 5 minutes, stirring every so often.

Reduce the heat to medium and add the parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, chicken broth, pieces of chicken, cubes of potatoes and broth. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Cover and let cook, stirring occasionally, until the potatoes are tender when pierced with the point of a sharp knife.

Add the corn, beans, and peas and stir to combine well. Cover and continue to cook another 2-3 minutes, until the beans are almost tender.

If you are thickening your stew, add the slurry and stir well to combine, then keep stirring until the broth thickens and begins to bubble. Serve hot.

You can use more and different vegetables to reflect what you have on hand or in the garden or from the farmer's market, but this combo was very tasty!

Here is the song from the title:

Are you goin to Scarborough fair? parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme

Remember me to one who lives there, she once was a true love of mine

Tell her to make me a cambric shirt, parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme

Without no seams nor needlework, then she'll be a true love of mine

Tell her to find me an acre of land, parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme

Between the salt water and the sea strand, then she'll be a true love of mine

Tell her to reap it in a sickle of leather, parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme

And to gather it all in a bunch of heather, then she'll be a true love of mine

Are you goin to Scarborough fair? parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme

Remember me to one who lives there, she once was a true love of mine

Long, Slender and Orange

I read a lot of recipes. I'm frequently browsing through cookbooks or all kinds, cookbooks I own, cookbooks from the library, cookbooks I borrow from friends, recipes in magazines, recipes from friends. It is inspirational and a little frustrating. So many recipes, such limited time. There is time to cook and even bake, and meals to be made. The limiting factor is often my disorganization...I don't remember (or write down) the necessary ingredients, so end up making old familiar dishes.

Recently I saw a recipe in the August 2007 Bon Appetit magazine that looked wonderful and innovative. It's a pasta dish with lots of lemon flavor, a flavor I always enjoy, but especially in the winter. The innovative part is that they use a vegetable peeler to shave long, thin strips of carrot to act sort of like linguine, then combing the carrot with linguine. It looks really pretty with the long, slender creamy linguine and the long, slender and orange carrot strips all mixed up together on the fork when you twirl them together.

The great thing is that I actually remembered to buy some nice long straight carrots, made sure I had lemons and linguine, and improved the recipe a bit by adding snow peas for color and crunch and making it with red bell pepper instead of orange or gold, mostly because I like some contrast. It was amazingly good as well as good looking. There was some butter in the sauce, but it still was a pretty healthy dish.

A tip on making the carrot strips: Start at the wider end of the carrot (where the leaves join the root) and, using a sharp vegetable peeler, peel one thin strip, then another one, then turn the carrot a quarter turn and repeat. This way you strips of carrot will stay fairly narrow. If you just run the peeler down the carrot time after time, the strips from the middle of the carrot will need to be cut into two. Otherwise they will be too fat and not play nicely with the linguine.

The snow peas are the only part of the dish that isn't shaped long and thin, but it's texture is different, too, very snappy and crisp. It makes a nice contrast to the softness of the rest of the dish and the color contrasts are fun, too. The lemon gives a burst of flavor and zing to each mouthful.

Linguine with Carrot Ribbons, Snow Peas and Lemon Sauce
A colorful, fresh tasting first-course or side dish

4 long slender carrots (about 9 oz.), peeled (although I didn’t peel mine and it was fine)
½ onion, finely chopped
¼ cup (1/2 stick) butter
1 tablespoon, packed, finely grated lemon zest
1 large or 2 small red bell peppers, cored and seeded, flesh cut lengthwise into ¼ inch strips
1 ½ cups snow peas, any tough strings removed, each cut in two pieces
8 oz. linguine
2.3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
¼ cup tablespoons fresh lemon juice
salt and pepper

Run vegetable peeler down length of each carrot, shaving into ribbons. (I found that turning the carrot a quarter turn after a couple of passes with the vegetable peeler kept the ribbons narrow.) Melt butter in heavy large skillet over medium heat. Add lemon peel and onions; stir 1 minute. Add carrots; stir 1 minute. Add bell peppers. Saute’ until just tender, about 4-5 minutes. Spread the snow pea pieces over the hot carrot and pepper mixture. Reduce heat to low and cover. Let sit for 1-2 minutes until peas are bright green, but still crunchy.

Meanwhile cook pasta in medium pot of boiling salted water until just tender but still firm to the bite. Drain, reserving ½ cup cooking liquid.

In the microwave, heat the lemon juice for 50 seconds at half power.

Add drained pasta, ¼ cup reserved cooking liquid, cheese, and the hot lemon juice to the skillet. Toss until sauce coast pasta and vegetables, adding more cooking liquid id too dry. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

4-6 first-course servings