Mushroom Wild Rice
Photo: Amina Malik / Contributor
A couple of weeks ago, a friend dropped off a bag of autumn wild rice native to Minnesota. It was unlike other wild rice varieties I had cooked in the past. With a dark brown outer germ, it was earthy, slightly chewy with a slight caramel flavor. More like aquatic wild grass, this sort of rice has been consumed by Native Americans and there are dozens of other varieties.
In this pilaf, with the addition of dark mushrooms and long grain basmati rice, I could taste the essence of the earth.