I love a potluck meal not only because there are so many different things to enjoy tasting, but also because some of our favorite recipes have come from potlucks. Remembering the first time I ate this salad, I very clearly see the large bowl, resting on a table in the room where we had our women’s meetings at church. I don’t remember other details of the gathering, but I know that Amelia was a toddler because I tried to distract her with toys so I could find out who made the salad. I felt worried— if I left without finding out I might never taste it again. The cook turned out to be my friend Saydi Eyre Shumway (who got it from her mother-in-law, who got it from a church cookbook), which was not a surprise because she’s a fabulous cook. All these years later, toddler Amelia is driving and gearing up for college applications, and I still can’t get enough of the salad. Neither can she.
Wild Rice Salad with Chicken is hearty enough to sustain you on a rainy day, but it won’t let you forget that spring is (kind of, almost) here. We made minor changes to the original to focus on spring, and our techniques are a bit different, but the general idea is the same as that first time I ate it on a paper plate with a plastic fork in that dear building that lay a few blocks between the art house movie theater and the Charles River.
Wild Rice Salad with Chicken and Avocado
1/2 red onion, sliced
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
2 cups long grain and wild rice mix (or one cup wild rice and one cup brown rice--make sure they list the same cooking time, or adjust for the difference)
1 quart chicken broth (or water)
juice of 1 lemon
4 chicken breasts, about 2 pounds, cooked and diced
1 bunch green onions, white and light green parts chopped
2 largish or 3 regular red garden radishes, sliced thin
5 ounces sugar snap peas, washed and sliced in half
2 or 3 medium avocados, diced
1 1/4 cups toasted, chopped pecans
DRESSING
3 cloves garlic, smashed, peeled, and diced
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard (we like Maille brand)
1/2 cup seasoned rice vinegar
several grinds fresh pepper
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
Heat two teaspoons vegetable oil in a three-quart pot over medium-high heat, then saute the onion for five minutes, until it’s just starting to get a little brown. Remove the onion to the serving bowl, then put rice into the pan and saute until it smells a little toasted (three or four minutes, for us). Add the amount of liquid called for on the package and cook as long as the package says, For us, this amounts to 4 cups liquid simmered for 45 minutes, though we check and stir occasionally. If the heat is too high, we have to add a little water.
While the rice simmers, make the dressing. Put chopped garlic in the bottom of a 1-pint Kerr jar, then cover it with salt and vinegar. Put the lid on the jar and shake really well. Then add the mustard and measure (but don’t add) the oil. Set it aside.
Chop the vegetables. Toast the pecans in a toaster oven or regular oven for 10 minutes at 325 degrees.
Add half the oil to the dressing, cover it and shake to mix well, then add the rest of the oil, cover, and shake some more.
As soon as the rice is ready, drain any extra water from the pot and put the rice into the serving bowl (on top of the onions). Pour most of the salad dressing over the rice while it is still warm--it absorbs the dressing and its flavors better that way. You might decide you don’t need it all, or you might decide you do. Add the chicken, remaining vegetables (not the avocado, which is a fruit, or the pecans, which are nuts:). Cover the salad and place it in the refrigerator for several hours--we like to give it a full twenty-four. Add the juice of half a lemon, avocado, and pecans just before serving.
EASIEST METHOD
Skip the red onion and don’t saute the rice, just cook it in liquid according to the package directions. Use frozen, pre-cooked chicken breast for the meat. Don’t toast the nuts (if you can keep one of these steps, toast the nuts).
