Wild Rice Salad with Steelhead Trout, Avocado, Mango & Quick Pickled Mustard Seeds

Who needs lettuce when you have nutty wild rice, peppery watercress, and juicy mango?

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Prep Time 20 mins

Course Lunch, Main Course, Salad

Cuisine American

Servings 2

Ingredients

  

• 1-2 tablespoons mustard seeds
• 3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
• 8 oz cooked and cooled wild rice see note
• 4 oz watercress, chopped
• 1 mango, cubed
• 1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
• juice of one orange I used a Cara Cara
• salt
• freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 tablespoon Tajin seasoning
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 16 oz poached steelhead trout, cut into bite-sized pieces see note
• 1 mini avocado, cubed

Instructions

 

• The night before or at least 20 minutes prior to assembling the salad-- in a ramekin soak the mustard seeds in the vinegar.
• When ready to assemble--toss together the wild rice, mango, mustard seeds (with the vinegar!), olive oil, orange juice, onion, watercress, and spices in a large bowl. Add the trout and avocado and stir gently.
• Divide into two bowls and serve.

Notes

• I poached the fish the night before in a shallow pan filled with water seasoned with lemon juice, a bay leaf, and sliced red onion.
• I love par-cooked pouches of wild rice. I normally buy them at Target and heat them up in a skillet with about a tablespoon of water. Alternatively, cook raw wild rice according to package instructions and cool completely.
• This recipe can easily be doubled!

Keyword salad

Another salad recipe! I don’t know what got into me. Steelhead trout has become a regular item at Aldi, where I do the majority of my shopping so I’ve been trying to come up with new ways to serve it. It’s very firm, like salmon, and lately, I’ve been poaching it and using it cold the next day. I love these wild rice packets I buy at Target (not sponsored!), the wild rice is basically fully cooked and all you have to do is heat it up. In this case, I heated it up and cooled it down for the salad but it’s great just to toss into soups and other dishes. I haven’t really seen it anywhere else but it’s worth seeking out. It really has added wild rice back into our meal rotations. Wild rice isn’t difficult to cook from scratch but it does take a long time and then if you have to cool it before using it, that adds a lot of time to your prep. If you are cooking it from scratch, I’d make it the day before and poach the trout at the same time. Then the meal comes together in a flash!

I don’t know if avocado and mango are natural pairs for wild rice but they should be! I’ve had them with similarly nutty and robust black rice so I had a hunch it would work. Luckily it did! I love the chewy texture and it added so much interest to the dish. The pickled mustard seeds practically pop in your mouth and I think eliminated the need for a proper dressing. Just toss all the components together and go! This would be a great picnic dish but I think I would add the avocado at your destination. It was so fresh tasting and fun to eat, you are going to want to make it over and over again.