25 July 2011

Number 25: Recipes for Month 1 - Wild Rice

Following on from my introductory post the other day, I'd like to share my first new recipe trials from month 1. After trying a vegetarian wild rice dish on holiday and falling in love with it, I was determined to make something similar. Many google searches later and I had a couple of recipes to attempt. Neither of them particularly what I was looking for, but I was ready to give them a go. Here are my cooking adventures:

Wild rice and spinach casserole










It doesn't look too bad really. Unfortunately I didn't really like it. I picked it about and only ate the rice. Feeling a bit deflated and useless, I attempted another recipe anyway:

Wild rice and spinach patties
 
makes 8 small patties
adapted from fresh365

 
1 egg
2 c cooked wild rice, brought to room temperature (leftover rice works great)
2 c chopped fresh spinach, cleaned and stems removed
3 T finely chopped chives
3 T chopped mint
1 1/2 t salt
1/2 t pepper
3 T olive oil


Prepare the wild rice according to the package. When fully cooked, turn off heat and add the spinach, stir to combine and return the lid, allow to sit 10 minutes. In a large bowl, whisk egg. Add rice and spinach mixture, chives, mint, salt and pepper. Stir well, and form into 8 patties. In a large grill pan, heat olive oil over medium heat. Transfer patties to the pan, press down with a spatula, and cook 5-7 minutes, until golden brown. Flip patties over, press down with a spatula, and cook 5-7 minutes, until golden brown. Serve warm.







I'd call this one a minor success! After a major spitting out of the dummy when the mixture failed too stick together, I kept at it and put little piles in the griddle pan anyway. Eventually they formed these little patties! They were tasty, if a little bit dry. With a dollop of barbeque sauce they were lovely!

So, what have I learnt? Don't just use any old recipes off the internet (apologies to the creators of these recipes). Don't throw a paddy when things don't turn out as you wanted. I'm just about to search through some recipe books for month 2's recipe - something simple but normal I think.... 

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