Recipe 9: Cherry Chard Wild Rice

The most dangerous recipe yet. ‘nough said. (Well not really “enough said” but I’ll explain in a moment)

The Shopping Experience

This recipe called for two ingredients that I wasn’t so sure about being able to find: rainbow Swiss chard and dried cherries. In the past, I remember seeing rainbow chard in my local grocery stores but once again, I think it was only seasonal in the summer. Dried cherries, on the other hand, I never noticed them once. But I think that is mostly because I don’t buy ingredients in bulk (dried berries and nuts are usually in the bulk bins in my grocery stores).

Luckily, the dried cherries were actually really easy to find! They were in the first grocery store I looked in in the bulk section.

Not-so-luckily, rainbow chard was nowhere to be seen in several stores I checked. I ended up having to settle on regular Swiss chard. Fortunately, I’m pretty sure the rainbow-ness is meant to benefit the superficial look of the dish with not much of an impact to the flavour.

The last slight substitution I had to make was buying feta cheese cubes (usually meant for salads) instead of a chunk/block of feta. This was because the blocks were sold in way bigger sizes that needed and I didn’t want to be stuck with a bunch of cheese that I’d have to use in a short period of time.

The Cooking Experience

Steaming the chard in a strainer/colander over the pot that was cooking the wild rice was a pretty cool idea that I would otherwise not really think of. I did have to steam it way longer than the recommended time of three minutes though since, after only three minutes, the chard didn’t really look as wilted as those in Jamie’s end product photo. I ended up steaming the chard for about 10-15 minutes.

The dangerous drama that occurred during the cooking of this recipe happened while I was finely chopping up the dried cherries. It was a simple enough task but the cherries were really sticky in the centre so once I cut into a bunch of them, I would have to peel off the ones that remained stuck to the knife. Because of the constant sticking of the cherries, my instinct was to start slicing them more aggressively on the chopping board so that they would fall off themselves during the slicing motion.

DO NOT do what I did. Just keep cutting them carefully and don’t forget that you’re wielding a sharp weapon. During my crass movements, I caught the tip of my index finger under the knife and gave a nice, deep cut.

Luckily, my reflexes were pretty good and I immediately put down the knife, backed away from the food, and went to the bathroom to grab band-aids and take care of my wound. It was dripping like a very leaky faucet. I honestly don’t even remember the last time I had a cut on my finger that bad. My finger was stingy and went even a little bit numb at the tip. After a while, I was able to collect myself, bandage it nice and tight, and finish the cooking without any other hiccups.

The Eating Experience

This dish was, in a word: “more-ish” (which means exactly what you think it means: you want more and more with every bite).

The sweetness and chewy texture of the cherries combined with the salty and creaminess from the feta cheese made the dish so well-balanced and kept everything tasting light despite the heavy component of wild rice. My boyfriend actually thought it was heartier because of the rice but he definitely did agree that it was delicious and exceptionally more-ish.

Final Thoughts

After we finished our bowls, we immediately turned to each other and said that we wish there was more. Needless to say, we’ll probably be making this one again sometime soon.

Total estimated cook time: 28 minutes

Total actual cook time: 53 minutes (including my little finger debacle)