Name: Hand-Harvested Wild Rice with Dried Mulberries
Total time: 55 min
Ingredients: 2¼ cups water; 1½ cups hand-harvested wild rice; ¼ cup dried white mulberries; 1 tablespoon sunflower oil; 1 tablespoon maple syrup; 4 fresh sage leaves; ¾ teaspoon fine sea salt; ½–1 teaspoon flake sea salt

Why This Recipe Works

This recipe is inspired by the hand-harvested wild rice served by chef, author, and educator Sean Sherman at Owamni in Minneapolis, a restaurant and community “committed to revitalizing Native American Cuisine and in the process … re-identifying North American Cuisine and reclaiming an important culinary culture long buried and often inaccessible.” Sherman’s company, The Sioux Chef, also founded the nonprofit organization North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems (NĀTIFS), which is dedicated to supporting entrepreneurship for Indigenous food businesses in tribal communities, “promoting indigenous foodways education, and facilitating Indigenous food access.” This simple side dish celebrates not only an ingredient—natural, hand-harvested wild rice—but a way of life. Foraged by canoe, and collected by hand for hundreds of years by the Ojibwe and other Native American tribes in the Midwest, true wild rice (the only native cereal grain of North America, which is not actually rice, but a type of aquatic grass) is paler in color and cooks more quickly than its cultivated cousin. It is highly nutritious, has a delicate nutty flavor, and combines beautifully with sweet or savory elements. For this recipe, we simmered the rice in an abundant amount of water, along with sweet and earthy dried mulberries, a few aromatic sage leaves, a touch of oil for richness, and some maple syrup for sweetness.

Before You Begin

We developed this recipe with wild rice from Native Wise LLC of Minnesota. The recipe times are specific to hand-harvested wild rice. This recipe can easily be doubled.

Instructions

Combine 2¼ cups water, 1½ cups hand-harvested wild rice, ¼ cup dried white mulberries, 1 tablespoon sunflower oil, 1 tablespoon maple syrup, 4 sage leaves, and ¾ teaspoon fine sea salt in medium saucepan and bring to boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes.

Without removing lid, remove pot from heat and let sit, still covered, for 10 minutes. Fluff rice with fork and discard sage leaves. Transfer rice to serving bowl and sprinkle with ½–1 teaspoon flake sea salt. Serve.