Coriander

Edamame and Sweet Rice Salad with Salty Seeds

by:
May 23, 2013
3.8
4 Ratings
Edamame and Sweet Rice Salad with Salty Seeds
Photo by Kenzi Wilbur
  • Serves 4
Author Notes

This recipe comes from Gluten-Free Girl Every Day by Shauna James Ahern and Daniel Ahern. —Amanda Hesser

What You'll Need
Ingredients
  • Sweet Rice Salad
  • 2 cups sticky rice
  • 3 tablespoons pumpkin seeds
  • 3 tablespoons sunflower seeds
  • 2 tablespoons sesame seeds
  • 2 tablespoons chia seeds
  • 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
  • 1 teaspoon coriander seeds
  • 1 teaspoon fennel seeds
  • 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1 cup cooked, shelled edamame
  • 1/4 cup Miso-Maple-Ginger Dressing (Recipe Follows)
  • Miso-Maple-Ginger Dressing
  • 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
  • 2 tablespoons umeboshi plum vinegar
  • 2 tablespoons maple syrup
  • 1 tablespoon brown rice miso
  • 1 large shallot, peeled and finely chopped
  • 1 1/2-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
  • 1 tablespoon white sesame seeds
  • 1 teaspoon sea salt
  • 6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1/4 cup sesame oil
Directions
  1. Making the dressing: Add vinegars, maple syrup, miso, shallot, and ginger in a blender. Turn on the blender and mix until frothy. Add the sesame seeds and salt and blend for one minute more.
  2. In a small bowl, combine the olive oil and sesame oil. With the blender running, slowly pour in the combined oils. Turn off the blender and taste the dressing. Do you want a little more acid? Add some more vinegar. A bit smoother taste? Try some more sesame oil.
  3. Soaking the rice: Rinse the rice in a colander, moving your hand through the rice with the water running. Drain the water completely. Repeat this three times. In a bowl, soak the rice in cold water for at least 1 hour.
  4. Roasting the salty seeds: Set a large skillet over high heat. When the pan is hot, add the pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds. Roast, moving the pan around to prevent burning, for 3 minutes. Add the sesame and chia seeds. Roast in the same manner for 2 minutes. Add the cumin, coriander, and fennel seeds. Roast in the pan, shaking it, for another 2 minutes. Turn off the heat. Add the salt, toss the seeds together, and set aside.
  5. Cooking the Rice: Drain the rice and put the rice in a microwave-safe bowl. Add enough water to be on the same level with the rice (usually about 1 1/2 cups). Heat in the microwave for 2 minutes, then stop, and stir in the rice. Cook the rice in 2-minute increments until it is soft and fluffy.
  6. If you don't have a microwave, then you can steam the rice. Fill a large pot with hot water, leaving 3 inches of space before the top of the pot. Put a bamboo steamer, or the metal insert that comes with pasta pots, into the pot. Put the rice in the steamer. Cover with a lid. Steam until the rice is soft and fluffy, about 10 minutes.
  7. Heating the Edamame: Heat the edamame to piping hot by either putting it in the microwave, or plopping it in a pot of boiling hot water for a couple of minutes and then draining.
  8. To serve, combine some of the sticky rice and edamame. Toss with the dressing. Top with the salty seeds.
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  • Shalini
    Shalini
  • Amanda Hesser
    Amanda Hesser
  • Heather
    Heather
  • hobbit445
    hobbit445
Amanda Hesser

Recipe by: Amanda Hesser

Before starting Food52 with Merrill, I was a food writer and editor at the New York Times. I've written several books, including "Cooking for Mr. Latte" and "The Essential New York Times Cookbook." I played myself in "Julie & Julia" -- hope you didn't blink, or you may have missed the scene! I live in Brooklyn with my husband, Tad, and twins, Walker and Addison.

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12 Reviews

Heather
Heather January 15, 2015
Incredibly delicious recipe here. Not difficult to make, yet beautifully complex in flavor and texture. The dressing is superb; I love everything in it and the way it comes together. I must have a different approach to recipes. When a recipe says plum vinegar and I only have pomegranate vinegar....I figure it's a go. Also, I don't have sticky rice; I have a constant supply of brown basmati in the fridge; worked marvelously. I think this could work warm or cold; when I ate mine it was somewhere in between. Thank you for helping me find a way to enjoy seeds (and everything else in the recipe) so much.
 
Amanda H.
Amanda H. January 17, 2015
Great to know it works well with substitutions, as I haven't tried it with other rices. Thanks so much for your comment!
 
hobbit445
hobbit445 August 27, 2013
I've searched three different well-stocked Asian grocery stores in my area and have failed to find brown rice miso and plum vinegar. Are there acceptable substitutes? Recipes with obscure ingredients frustrate me no end...you'll need to run a contest "Your Best Recipes with Umeboshi Plum Vinegar" to justify this one!
 
Amanda H.
Amanda H. August 27, 2013
Yes, please feel free to use white miso and rice wine vinegar. I understand your frustration, and I should have offered substitutes, however I do think it's important that we post recipes with some obscure but interesting ingredients. It's a way for people to explore and discover -- just think back to when goat cheese was obscure. If no one wrote recipes that included goat cheese, it wouldn't be so common today. Maybe some day brown rice miso will be available in your local grocery store. In the meantime, thanks for the reminder to include alternatives when a recipe does call for less common ingredients.
 
hobbit445
hobbit445 August 28, 2013
Thanks Amanda, both for the sub-ins and for your gentle defense.

And (insert sheepish tone here) I located a bottle of the plum vinegar in Whole Foods yesterday.
 
Amanda H.
Amanda H. August 28, 2013
No need to feel sheepish -- I totally understand your frustration, and I'm also glad you found some plum vinegar! Good to know it's sold at Whole Foods.
 
Shalini
Shalini June 2, 2013
I am finding intregue in the seed mixture phenomenon, too. There's a craze going on in the U.K. with "salad seed" mixtures, sold with the intention of sprinkling onto salads or stirfries. This recipe looks absolutely lip-smacking!
 
Count M.
Count M. June 1, 2013
I don't comment here too often, but I make a lot of the recipes. (I LOVE the Genius recipes.) The final product was delicious, but rarely do I run across a recipe that frustrates me this much, starting with the cost! If I had purchased everything in this recipe, It would have easily been a $50 bowl of rice. (Luckily, I had a few things in the pantry and did a few substitutions as well, like a pickled plum in place of buying plum vinegar.)
Second, there are omissions/confusing bits in the recipe. Like, when it says to add the sesame seeds in step 4 -- no sesame seeds are listed in the sweet rice salad ingredients.
Third, I have no idea why I bothered to microwave the rice. Honestly, I had to put it in EIGHT times (16 minutes) and was basically tethered to the microwave, because every two minutes I had to get it out and stir it. In the rice cooker, it might have taken 4 minutes longer, a I would have had sweet freedom as well.
Fourth, ultimately, I think it's inaccurately named. It says "salad," but asks you to heat the edamame and serve everything after cooking the rice. If it had been called "warm salad" or "pilaf" or if the instructions had said "let cool and serve at room temperature, I wouldn't have had such a disconnect between my expectations and the reality.

Honestly, I'll probably make it again, but I'll make so many changes it will be more like something "inspired by" this recipe.
 
Amanda H.
Amanda H. June 2, 2013
Thanks for your thoughts, Count Mockula. We certainly wouldn't want to promote $50 rice recipes -- I think the idea here is that many people will already have a few of these ingredients, and if they don't, yes, buying them for the recipe will be expensive -- but if you continue to make the recipe, the upfront expense will spread out as you use the spices, etc multiple times. The sesame seeds omission is a mistake we made when inputting the recipe -- I'll fix that now. And I'm sorry to hear your rice took so long to cook. Ours took less time, which makes me wonder if we have a different variety of sticky rice. Also not everyone has a rice cooker so we thought this was a solid alternative. Thanks for your detailed thoughts, and glad to know you'll make it again, with changes!
 
Peggy H.
Peggy H. May 31, 2013
This looks really interesting but there's something I don't understand: I thought sticky rice was white. But in the photo it looks purplish/dark red. What am I missing? Does it turn that color with the dressing, or is there a type of sticky rice I am not familiar with?
 
Amanda H.
Amanda H. May 31, 2013
It is typically white -- this variety had a mix of red and white grains and the red grains stained everything pink, like a beet!
 
GoodFoodie
GoodFoodie May 30, 2013
Whohoo - what's better than the talents of Amanda/Merrill and Shauna?! Can't wait to try this.