Italian Black Rice Salad with Vinaigrette

This Black Rice Salad is our Gusti take on this Bon Appetit recipe. It’s a wonderful summer dish. Best of all, after you nail the rice and the vinegar dressing, you can have fun adding your own ingredients based on what you’ve got. This is one of those glorious recipes that you don’t really have to follow.

This dish screams summer. Yes, it is beautiful! The color contrast is stunning. But most importantly, this salad is buonissima! It is complex but well balanced. It is refreshing and light, yet immensely satisfying. And it’s the kind of dish you can make the day before and leave in your fridge.

SERVES: 4-6

Ingredients

Crespi Black Rice
Sea Salt
Tuscan Pine Nuts, 1 bag
Lemon juice, 3 tablespoons
Sirk Grape Vinegar, 2 tablespoons
Eucalyptus Honey, 1 tablespoon, (softened by placing jar in hot water)
Tuscan Extra Virgin Olive Oil, 1/4 cup
Scallions, 4, thinly sliced
Carrot 1, thinly sliced
Peas, a couple of handfuls
Another vegetable of your choice! (We love using sliced Maida Sun Dried tomatoes. Also, not a vegetable, but shrimp are great too.)

Preparation

1. Cook rice in a medium saucepan of boiling salted water until tender but al dente, aprox. 25-35 minutes
2. While rice is cooking, toast pine nuts in a pan on the stove and then let cool
3. Drain rice well, spread out on a flat surface, and let cool
4. Whisk lemon juice, vinegar, and honey together, while whisking gradually add in EVOO, then add salt
5. Toss rice with vegetables then add vinaigrette and season with salt if needed