Everyone loves rice.  It’s the most important staple food for a large part of the world’s human population, especially in East and South Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and the West Indies.

The seeds of the rice plant are first milled using a rice huller to remove the chaff (the outer husks of the grain). At this point in the process, the product is brown rice. I’m sure you all know this chewier, nuttier form of rice that healthy folks eat instead of the typical white rice.

Personally, I like white rice.

Black rice is one of several black colored heirloom plants. It’s high in nutritional value and has a similar amount of fiber to brown rice…who knew?! I bet people would way rather eat black rice than brown rice. The rice council of America should start promoting that more. Then maybe Americans would get a little more fiber in their over-processed, fatty diets.

Wild rice isn’t rice at all! It’s actually four species of grasses. It’s not even directly related to Asian rice, although they are close cousins. Like close enough that it’s probably still not ok for them to marry and have kids. ;)

Weedy rice, also known as red rice, is a species of rice that produces far fewer grains per plant than cultivated rice and is therefore considered a pest. Take that red rice!

Isn’t that all you ever wanted to know about rice…and more? ;)

Ok, so now that you’ve had your little lesson for today. Let me introduce you to something delicious. This here salad is apparently made from the weedy version of rice, but I promise you it doesn’t taste weedy at all.

Truth be told, I wanted to use black rice because I thought the color would look pretty with the cranberries, oranges, and mint in the recipe. But the stupid little nyc supermarket I went to didn’t have black rice, and I wasn’t about to go to two or three other markets to maybe find it. Apparently, black rice turns purplish when it cooks, so it probably wouldn’t have been all that much prettier than the red rice I ended up using.

Colors aside, this dish would be beautiful with whatever variety of rice is your favorite. Or even with another grain like wheatberries. That could be tasty.

I’m submitting this recipe to #ricelove. Please join in on the #ricelove fun by linking up any rice recipe from the month of September.  Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list… Powered by Linky Tools