Wild rice what is it

Store cooked wild rice in a closed container in the fridge for up to a week. Freeze cooked wild rice in an airtight container for up to six months. It has a mild, more subtle flavor that borders on smoky.

Farmed wild rice is a deeper dark brown, almost black. It's a bit tougher and takes longer cook, but its deep nutty nuances are worth the extra effort. Packaged wild rice may be multi-hued, an indication that it's made with a blend of four species of wild rice, or it may have white or other kinds of rice mixed in.

Most wild rice is not actually grown in the wild, but rather cultivated in "grow puddles" at farms to mimic its native growing conditions. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data. Select personalised content. Create a personalised content profile. Measure ad performance. Select basic ads. As a lake harvester paddles through the stalks of grass containing the rice seed, two wooden sticks or paddles are used to harvest the green rice. One stick is held in one hand to bend the stalk over the boat while the other hand uses the second stick to gently shake the stalk in order to release the raw kernels so they drop into the bottom of the boat where they accumulate prior to bagging.

Wild Rice grains harvested from inland lakes such as in Minnesota or Canada, provide varying lengths and colors of rice, which is a common trait as the rice often varies in characteristics from one body of water to another. The color may range from shades of yellow, tan, and brown, to almost completely black. Some grains of Canadian Wild Rice may reach lengths of one inch or longer. Cultivated Wild Rice, which is grown in controlled paddies, is the type most commonly found in food stores.

This rice is less expensive as well as more consistent in length and color than lake grown Wild Rice. After harvesting lake rice, the green kernels are typicaly sun dried for several weeks in stacked piles where the rice goes through a lengthy fermentation process which darkens the color of the rice. After being fermented, the rice is then smoke-cured by parching it over fire, gas or steam heat. This process dries the Wild Rice so it can then be placed in threshing drums to loosen the chaff from the parched rice so it can be winnowed away in order to remove it from the kernel.

Some kernels of cultivated Wild Rice may become nearly black in appearance after drying while lake rice generally remains lighter in color. However, some varieties of lake rice may be lighter colored due to the processing method used when harvesting the rice, which lengthens the time the rice remains in the threshing drum.

The purpose of this procedure is to dry the rice and slit it as it is hulled to remove as much moisture as possible in order to provide a kernel that will not take as long to cook when being prepared for a meal.

Wild Rice has a very pleasant chewy texture and a distinctive nutty and natural flavor with a smokey overtone. The flavor of lake rice can vary from one lake to another and sometimes from one area to another in the same lake. More than half of the Wild Rice that is consumed is blended with other types of rice that are less expensive, however Wild Rice has such a distinctive flavor that a small quantity is sufficient to provide adequate flavor to the rice blend.

Wild Rice can be served as a side dish, becoming a tasty alternative to potatoes or white rice. Rice rained down obediently into the canoe as they moved forward, his poles tapping out a click-click-click rhythm born of years of repetition.

Wild rice is one of the only grains native to North America, and definitely its most misunderstood. It is not directly related to Asian rice. Here in northern Minnesota, at the center of the genetic reserve of wild-rice seedstock, where it grows naturally in lakes and creeks, we call that black stuff by its proper name: paddy rice. In the s, the University of Minnesota began domesticating wild rice.

They planted it in rows in flooded paddies, which they drained to harvest by combine like any other field crop. Real wild rice varies in shape and color from lake to lake, but once cooked, it is always some shade of luminescent milky brown—the color of tea spilled onto a saucer. It curls into loose ringlets that pop delicately between your teeth. It tastes the way a morning campfire smells: of smoldering wood coals and lake fog at dawn.

We headed to the shore, where a group was cooking the green rice in a giant cast-iron kettle. Like coffee beans, wild-rice kernels need to be roasted, or parched, over heat to firm their tawny core and dry for long-term storage. Jacobson introduced me to Logan Cloud, an artfully tattooed, soft-voiced something member of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe. Its story is braided tightly into the history of this region, a remote area where the economy, for both Native peoples and white settlers, has generally been one of subsistence.

But it was the mostly white-owned paddy-rice industry, centered in California, that pushed to make wild rice a marketable commodity. Money—or at least the prospect of it—drove everyone to excess. People harvested too early, before the rice had a chance to reseed itself, wiping out once-flush stands. Tribe leaders moved without consensus to sow spent reservoirs with seeds from other waterways, wiping out age-old varieties.

The University of Minnesota bred a rice with a thick stem that could handle mechanical harvesting, without any thought to the way it would cross-pollinate with the native plants. Cloud bounced some hot, smoking rice onto the canoe paddle he was using as a stir stick, and lobbed a few kernels into his mouth to test for doneness, crunching audibly and spitting out the hulls.

At the point of first colonial contact, the Ojibwe smoke-dried their rice in birch-bark vessels strung up high over the fire. She danced in short, halting steps, light and twisting at the hip. A drummer hammered out a bass beat, steady and hypnotic, the tempo set to keep the jigger jigging.

Wild rice keeps best in a cool, dark place. Seal it in airtight containers to protect its flavor and prevent contamination by pests. Cook your wild rice with a one to three ratio of rice to liquid water or broth. Bring liquid to a boil; add rice, enough salt to make the water taste like the sea and a pat of butter or a glug of olive oil. Stir it once, cover, reduce to low and simmer until all of the liquid has been absorbed and the grains are starting to burst, about minutes, depending on the age of the rice and whether it has been scarified — scratched on the surface to more readily absorb water.

Wild rice makes a great side dish either on its own or blended with other rices or grains. It also refrigerates well and makes a fantastic addition to salads.

In the FDA released a report confirming that our domestic rice supply is a considerable vector for arsenic exposure.

While not technically rice, wild rice was included in the study and was confirmed to contain more arsenic than white rice per serving, but not as high as brown rice. Long-term exposure to high levels of arsenic is associated with higher rates of skin, bladder and lung cancers, as well as heart disease. To lessen exposure to arsenic through rice consumption , it is advised to limit the consumption of rice; vary the types of grains in your diet; rinse rice thoroughly before cooking; and boil rice like pasta in a generous amount of water and drain when done cooking, rather than steaming in a small amount of water.

That being said, wild rice is higher in protein than most other whole grains, and is a good source of antioxidants, fiber, folate, magnesium, phosphorus, manganese, zinc, Vitamin B-6 and niacin. Real Food Encyclopedia Wild Rice. Fun Facts about Wild Rice: Other edible grasses include corn, wheat, barley, millet, oats, sugar cane, sorghum, rye and bamboo.

Wild rice can be ground into flour to make bread and pancakes. In Minnesota, wild rice harvesters must be licensed to gather the grain and must harvest in the traditional, Native American way.