• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Forager Chef

Foraging and Cooking Mushrooms, Wild and Obscure Food

  • Home
  • About
  • Mushrooms
    • Mushroom Species Archive
    • Posts by Species
      • Other
        • Lobster Mushrooms
        • Shrimp of the Woods
        • Truffles
        • Morels
        • Shaggy Mane
        • Hericium
        • Puffball
      • Polypores
        • Hen of the Woods
        • Dryad Saddle
        • Chicken of The Woods
        • Cauliflowers
        • Ischnoderma
        • Beefsteak
      • Chanterelles
        • Black Trumpet
        • Red Cinnabar
        • Yellowfeet
      • Gilled
        • Matsutake
        • Russula / Lactarius
          • Candy Caps
          • Saffron Milkcap
          • Indigo Milkcap
        • Fairy Rings
      • Boletes
        • Porcini
        • Leccinum
        • Slippery Jacks
    • Recipes
      • Fresh
      • Dried
      • Preserves
    • The Basics
  • Plants
    • Plant Archive
    • Leafy Green Recipes
      • Leafy Green Plant Varieties
    • Wild Fruit
      • Wild Plums
      • Highbush Cranberry
      • Wild Grapes
      • Rowanberries
      • Wild Cherries
      • Aronia
      • Elderberry
      • Nannyberry
      • Wild Blueberries
    • Wild Herbs and Spices
    • From The Garden
    • Nuts, Roots, Tubers and Grains
    • Stalks and Shoots
  • Meat
    • Four-Legged
    • Poultry
    • Fish/Seafood
    • Offal
    • Charcuterie
  • Recipes
    • Pickles, Preserves, Etc
    • Fermentation
    • Condiments
    • Appetizers
    • Soup
    • Salad
    • Side Dishes
    • Entrees
    • Baking
    • Sweets
  • Video
    • The Wild Harvest
    • Foraging Videos
    • Lamb and Goat Series
    • YouTube Tutorials
  • Press
    • Podcasts
  • Work
    • Public Speaking
    • Charity and Private Dinners
    • Forays / Classes / Demos

Wild Rice Polenta

Jump to Recipe Print Recipe
Parched wild rice polenta

Coarse ground parched wild rice. If you use black paddy rice you’ll need to sift and grind a second time to make sure the particles are more even.

Wild rice polenta. Breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner, you name it. This stuff is great, and it cooks in a fraction of the time typical wild rice does. It started with a farmer that ran a CSA that would bring me goodies once and a while when dropping off his boxes of veggies: a couple sunchokes here, some wild mushrooms there.

I didn’t really take him seriously at first, since he once tried selling me the most old, woody, wormy chicken of the woods I’d ever laid eyes on, that would’ve made some unlucky person sick. One day, he brought polenta he’d made from Indian corn that he had grown, dried and ground himself, and that I liked.

hand ground polenta

The last 2 cups of my first batch of hand ground polenta.

 

I bought a gallon bag of cornmeal for 50$ It was mesmerizing. Instead of the typical mono-yellow, my gallon ziploc was flecked with maize jewels in red, orange, and yellow. And it cooked differently, too.

Hand ground polenta flint corn

The line cooks exclaimed at the amount of water it drank during cooking–much more, a ratio of 4 or 5 to 1, and it needed more attention than your average polenta. It needed slow, gentle cooking, and could cook for hours. I cooked a small portion on the stove that night during service, and, just like I suspected, it was the best polenta I’d ever had, and it completely changed how I think about polenta, grits, and things I make with corn.

The next week I bought his entire crop, (2 more bags I meted out for months) and tried to contract with him for the next year so I could get it all for myself. But it wasn’t to be.

Parched wild rice polenta

You want ground wild rice, but not complete flour/powder– a little texture is good too.

Eventually he ran out, and I only saw him a few more times before the restaurant closed, but you bet we squeezed every last ounce of magic out of that flint corn meal. Now that I’d tasted it though, I had flint corn fever, and I needed more. I started wondering If I could grind things myself and make similar dishes until the next year’s harvest came. And that was when I started grinding parched wild rice.

Any wild rice product will work in a pinch

Now, you can purchase wild rice flour, but it’s made from black commodity wild rice, not parched wild rice. Good for some things, but the flavor is different since the grains undergo fermentation during storage (this is why commodity wild rice is jet black and hard) instead of parching, and winnowing to remove chaff. Wild rice flour is also very fine, and for grits or polenta you want some texture. In a pinch though, any form of wild rice or wild rice flour will taste good cooked into polenta/grits, just be prepared to cook it longer if you use black paddy wild rice.

Parched wild rice polenta

Parched wild rice polenta
Print Recipe
5 from 1 vote

Parched Wild Rice Polenta

Yield: roughly 3 cups of polenta, enough to serve 4 people as part of an entree
Prep Time15 mins
Cook Time20 mins
Course: Appetizer, Side Dish
Cuisine: American
Keyword: Parched wild rice, Polenta, Wild Rice Flour

Ingredients

  • 1 cup high quality parched wild rice
  • 2.5 cups milk
  • 2.5 cups strong homemade chicken stock
  • Kosher salt to taste
  • 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • ¼ cup grated parmigiana reggiano or grana padano cheese or a domestic parmesan

Instructions

  • Using a grain mill, spice grinder or a highspeed blender, grind the wild rice until coarse/fine.
  • The mix shouldn’t be complete powder like wild rice flour, you want some chunks here and there, which will give some texture to the finished product. If you use black paddy rice though, prepare to cook for as long as an hour to soften up the chunks.
  • Bring the stock and milk to a simmer, then stir in the ground wild rice. Cook the rice on slow, gentle heat, stirring occasionally, until the liquid is absorbed and the mixture has thickened to the consistency of oatmeal. If the mixture seems wet, continue cooking until more liquid has evaporated. Taste and season the wild rice polenta. From here, it can be made ahead of time, cooled, and reheated if you like.
  • Add the parmesan and butter and stir to combine, then double check the seasoning and season to taste with salt, then taste again and adjust if needed-it's not going to season itself. Serve immediately.

Notes

The delicate, nutty flavor of parched wild rice in polenta form is a blank slate for savory and sweet recipes. Mix it with butter and parmesan it's the perfect bed for that roasted pork loin, braised beef or your favorite roast chicken. Make it with milk and fold in some soft herbs and it's a partner for that baked walleye. Cook it with milk, vanilla and cinnamon and it's a fantastic substitute for oatmeal with a little maple and butter of top.
The recipe and proportions here are easily scaled.

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Print
  • Email
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • Reddit

Related

Previous Post: « Monkfish Piccata with Cardoons, Chard, and Dandelion Capers
Next Post: Spruce Chocolate Mousse »

Reader Interactions

Trackbacks

  1. Wild Rice Polenta - Top Rank Chefs says:
    February 22, 2020 at 8:31 am

    […] Read More […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




Primary Sidebar

Pre-Order MY BOOK

Categories

Forager Chef

Forager Chef

Instagram

foragerchef

Some nice wild enoki clones from @unkle_fungus Can Some nice wild enoki clones from @unkle_fungus Cant wait until these start popping up when the snow melts. The difference between the coloration of wild ones (pic 1) and cultivated that are white from the lack of sun (pic 2) is always interesting to compare. (The cultivated ones are a different species of Flammulina too). 

We’re really lucky to have such a vibrant community of small, local mushroom growers and related makers. Feel free to tag your favorite you like or one I should know about in the comments. 

#enokimushroom #mushroomgrowers #flammulinavelutipes #blanche #allthemushroomtags #wintermushrooms
Celebrated my birthday last night with a few stiff Celebrated my birthday last night with a few stiff spruce’n’sodas. The spruce tip liquor I collaborated on with @ida_graves_distillery drinks like a mildly piney gin. Dangerously easy to drink. #sprucetips #craftliquor #drinkatree #itsmybirthdaybitches #im25again
Social media can be a wall-to-wall, endless string Social media can be a wall-to-wall, endless string of triumphs. We all know reality isn’t like that, so with the snow melting here, I thought I’d share a funny maple season fail with you (at the time it was not funny).

I was making maple soda out of sap, sweetfern and syrup that I like. I’d kept the glass bottle of soda in the fridge for a couple weeks, waiting for a good time to get to it. I’d started the mother batch with a pinch of commercial champagne yeast, which is vigorous stuff. 

One night I got up and poured myself a glass of water, and sleepily forgot to close the fridge all the way, which increased the temp. A few hours later I woke up to what sounded like a grenade going off. 

The bottle exploded and the inside of the fridge, all its contents, and the floor were covered with sticky maple juice, and I spent the next two hours mopping and picking out shards of glass that had embedded themselves like shrapnel in the walls of the fridge. 

Now, I use plastic restaurant cambros to make carbonated drinks. 💫

#fermentationfails #fail #soda #fermentation #explosions #dontrythisathome
My chief editorial assistant about to do backflips My chief editorial assistant about to do backflips for smoked goat kidneys. 

If you would have asked me a few years ago if I would see myself writing recipes (and filming videos) on making dog treats I would have laughed. 

But, working with @shepherdsongfarm, trying to figure out creative, economical methods for butchery and whole carcass utilization for lamb and goat has pushed my creativity into new places. Grateful for that. 💫

If you get down on kidneys, I have a good version for humans on my site too. A good piece of charcuterie to know. 

Hand model @pgerasimo 

#grassfed #goat #eatmoregoat #kidneys #offal #dogtreats #rescuepitbull #editorialassistant
7pm ET tonight on @the_outdoor_channel I take @dan 7pm ET tonight on @the_outdoor_channel I take @danielvitalis hunting for mushrooms and pigeons in WI, then I cook dinner on the farm for @wild.fed, his outdoors series that shows that wild food is much more than just meat. 

If you don’t have the outdoor channel, you could use the free trial of @frndlytv that will let you watch it live. 

Finished dishes I did were pigeon brochettes with rams bacon, sunflower roulades and wild cherry sauce and pigeon, sweet corn and wild mushroom stew. 

#mushroomhunting #wildfed #foragerchef #outdoorchannel #pigeon #foraging
After watching an old episode of Munchies (see You After watching an old episode of Munchies (see YouTube/Vice) I scribbled down a prep for yellow foot chanterelles a Swedish food truck was making. They took flatbread (tonnebrod, but I use lefse, because 🇳🇴💪) piled high with hot yellowfeet and fresh kraut, mayo, Västerbotten cheese (fontina or Hushållsost are ok subs). 

It’s one of the best ways I’ve had yellowfeet, like a funky, cheese, Nordic burrito. Just killer. 

I even forgot my lefse and served some to family in a couple BS flour tortillas Grandma had (heresy, IK) —still didn’t suck. 

Props to @ingebretsens in Mpls for making their own lefse since my Norwegian Grandma wasn’t  around. I channeled her though. 

#midwestwinter #lefse #lefseforlife #youbetcha #oleandlenawouldbeproud #yellowfootchanterelles #wildmushrooms
Load More... Follow on Instagram

Footer

Privacy

  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2021 · Foodie Pro & The Genesis Framework

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.