Name: Wild Rice and Asparagus Salad
Yield: Makes 4 to 8 servings
Ingredients: whole cilantro leaves; 2 scallions, finely chopped; 5 tablespoons orange juice; 1 tablespoon finely sliced orange zest; 1 cup wild rice; 1 quart water; 2 tablespoons sesame seeds; salt; 3 or 4 handfuls of nappa cabbage, cut into squares, or watercress leaves; 2 teaspoons minced garlic; pinch of sugar; 2 to 3 tablespoons roughly chopped cilantro; 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar; 1 tablespoon grated ginger; 1 tablespoon soy sauce; 3 tablespoons light sesame oil; 2 tablespoons dark sesame oil; 1 to 1½ pounds asparagus

Preparation info

Makes
4 to 8
servings

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

The Savory Way

By Deborah Madison

Published 1990

About

Wild rice, whether cultivated or actually harvested from the wild, has a vigorous, earthy taste, and in a salad it would be well matched with thin stalks of wild asparagus. Lacking that, here is a recipe using cultivated asparagus. This particular rice salad is seasoned with both light and dark sesame oil, orange peel, and ginger; the asparagus stalks are cut into small rounds and dispersed among the grains of rice.

Rice salads are best when the dressing is mixed with warm grains; t