Snacking State-by-State: Minnesota III - More things to do with wild rice (or My second attempt at frybread)

Continuing with the wild rice recipes from the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa, I next tackle the fine art of that most classic of modern Native American foods: the frybread.

Official Name: State of Minnesota
State Nicknames: The Gopher State; The Land of 10,000 Lakes; North Star State
Admission to the US: May 11, 1858 (#32)
Capital: St. Paul (2nd largest)
Other Important Cities: Minneapolis (largest); Duluth (4th largest); St. Cloud (8th largest)
Region: Midwest; Great Lakes; West North Central (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Wild Rice; Bison
Bordered by: Manitoba & Ontario (Canada) (north); Lake Superior (northeast); Wisconsin (east); Iowa (south); North & South Dakota (west)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: milk (drink); walleye (fish); honeycrisp apple (fruit); Northern wild rice (grain); blueberry muffin (muffin); morel (mushroom)
Some Famous & Typical Foods: Eastern and Northern European - especially Scandinavian (Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, etc) - foods, especially lutefisk; Native American (Dakota, Ojibwe/Chippewa, etc) food traditions; dairy products

I tried to make frybread once before, a few years ago.  It didn't go so well.  Far from being light and lush, it was dense and a bit hard.  I must have done something wrong.  And I was offered help by one commenter, though I didn't make it again until now.  I only hope that Cassie sees this new post, to see that I got much closer to doing it right.  At least right enough for me.

The recipe: Wild Rice Frybread (from the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa)

For this frybread, the recipe for which comes from the Nett Lake Wild Rice website, you will need a few ingredients that are probably lying around, plus the already-cooked wild rice.

* wild rice (of course)
* flour (had it)
* baking powder (same)
* cornmeal (the recipe does not suggest white or yellow.  I used white in this case)
* water and salt
* oil for frying

Combine the dry ingredients and the wild rice.

Add some of the cornmeal - see the Nett Lake website for exact amounts.

Add the water and stir until thick and kneadable.  If too sticky, add some more flour and cornmeal.

Still adding the water.

This is what the dough should look like.

Divide the dough into equal parts, depending on how much you make (I did a half recipe).  Sprinkle generously with flour and the rest of the cornmeal to keep from sticking to the rolling pin.

Or in this case, the parchment paper I put between the rolling pin and the dough.  You should roll it out to about a 10 inch thickness, and either fry the whole flattened round or tear into pieces.

I did the latter, getting something kind of naan-shaped.  Fry in oil that has reached the smoking point for about 45 seconds on a side.

Transfer each piece to a towel to absorb the oil - all that oil!  Serve with butter and/or powdered sugar.

I must say my second attempt at making frybread worked out very well.  This tastes best fresh out of the pan, not reheated, though heating it up in the toaster oven will likely work better than in the microwave.  The wild rice adds a nice texture and a slightly nutty flavor.  It's a great way to use up some extra wild rice.

We are done for now with the Great White North that is the Upper Midwest.  We next head down to the opposite end of the Mississippi River, and explore some of the very Southern dishes of Mississippi.

Sources:

Adams, Marcia. Heartland: The Best of the Old and the New from Midwest Kitchens. Clarkson Potter: New York, 1991.

All Things Considered.  "Best Holiday Food: Tried Some of That Lutefisk?" Reported by Audie Cornish for National Public Radio. Original airdate: December 31, 2010.

Bois Forte Band of Chippewa.  "History".  From the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa website.  Copyright 2011.

Chiu, Michael.  "Gravlax".  From the Cooking for Engineers website.  Published September 2, 2005.

Dooley, Beth, and Lucia Watson.  Savoring Seasons of the Northern Heartland.  Alfred A. Knopf: New York, 1994.

Gates, Stefan.  "Homemade Gravlax".  From the Gastronaut website and the BBC Book Gastronaut, copyright 2006.

Henderson, Helene.  The Swedish Table.  University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis, 2005.

Nett Lake Wild Rice.  "Recipes".  Copyright Bois Forte Band of Chippewa.

Seafood from Norway. "Norwegian Gravlax with Whole Grain Mustard Dill Sauce".  From the Seafood from Norway website.  Published 2005.  Copyright Eksportutvalget for fisk (Norwegian Seafood Export Council), 2005.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Minnesota" page and other pages, and the Food Timeline State Foods link to "Minnesota".

Snacking State-by-State: Minnesota II - Oh what you can do with wild rice!

Some of Minnesota's signature official foods are native foods - wild rice, morels.  Minnesota's Native American communities have been using these ingredients for millenia, and are creating recipes with them today.

Official Name: State of Minnesota
State Nicknames: The Gopher State; The Land of 10,000 Lakes; North Star State
Admission to the US: May 11, 1858 (#32)
Capital: St. Paul (2nd largest)
Other Important Cities: Minneapolis (largest); Duluth (4th largest); St. Cloud (8th largest)
Region: Midwest; Great Lakes; West North Central (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Wild Rice; Bison
Bordered by: Manitoba & Ontario (Canada) (north); Lake Superior (northeast); Wisconsin (east); Iowa (south); North & South Dakota (west)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: milk (drink); walleye (fish); honeycrisp apple (fruit); Northern wild rice (grain); blueberry muffin (muffin); morel (mushroom)
Some Famous & Typical Foods: Eastern and Northern European - especially Scandinavian (Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, etc) - foods, especially lutefisk; Native American (Dakota, Ojibwe/Chippewa, etc) food traditions; dairy products

Minnesota has many bands of Native peoples, primarily Dakota and Chippewa/Ojibwe.  The last part is not a typo - the Chippewa are the Ojibwe, just with a differently pronounced name.  It is not difficult to find Native American recipes from the Upper Midwest.  Take the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa, who sell wild rice at the Nett Lake Wild Rice website, harvested "the traditional way":

...by two persons in a canoe. One person uses a long pole to push the canoe slowly through the rice beds. The other person, seated in front of the poler, uses a pair of smoothly-carved “knocking sticks” to pull the rice stalks toward the canoe and gently knock loose the ripened grains of rice. This technique ensures that only ripe grains fall into the canoe while unripe grains can continue to ripen for later harvest. [Bois Forte Band 2011]

I attempted two recipes from the Bois Forte Band's Nett Lake website, unfortunately not with their own brand of wild rice.  One recipe incorporates wild rice into one of the most common Native American foods in the US - frybread (that post goes up soon).  The other is a side dish incorporating another native Minnesota food, the mushroom.  In this case, I went all out and used something truly Minnesotan: the morel.

The recipe: Morel Mushroom Wild Rice (adapted from the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa)

For this pilaf you will need the following:

* wild rice (it's easy to find wild rice pilaf in the supermarket.  It's much more difficult to find bags of just wild rice.  I had to go to Trader Joe's for this.  A bag will run about $5.  Note: for this recipe you will need to prepare the wild rice first.  Follow the directions on the bag or at the Nett Lake recipe website)
* mushrooms (I got morels - see below for a little more about this)
* wheat germ (to give it a little bulk.  This set me back about $3 or $4)
* onion (bought one at the store, not expensive)
* parsley (from the garden)
* cumin and basil (had them)
* olive oil (had it too)

The recipe doesn't specify, but I wanted as complete a Minnesota experience as possible so I hunted down morels, the official state mushroom of Minnesota.  These are not cheap: Melissa's popular brand of dried goods is available at Wegman's.  A small box of morels will run - gasp - $9.  Since I saved money on the salmon from the previous recipe, I splurged on this.  But feel free to use any mushroom - fresh or dried and rehydrated

So I had these morels, right?  And I had to rehydrate them.

Chop or slice the mushrooms, and sauté them in a pan with the onions - sliced - and parsley - chopped - in the olive oil.

Next, add the wild rice and continue to sauté.

Add the remaining ingredients and cook for a few more minutes.

I thought this recipe needed a little salt, which you should do to taste.  Apart from that, this is a simple and filling dish to make.  You get a lot of mileage out of the nutty wild rice.  I have to admit: I didn't taste the morels too much.  Were I to do this again, I would use a cheaper mushroom.

Sources:

Adams, Marcia. Heartland: The Best of the Old and the New from Midwest Kitchens. Clarkson Potter: New York, 1991.

All Things Considered.  "Best Holiday Food: Tried Some of That Lutefisk?" Reported by Audie Cornish for National Public Radio. Original airdate: December 31, 2010.

Bois Forte Band of Chippewa.  "History".  From the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa website.  Copyright 2011.

Chiu, Michael.  "Gravlax".  From the Cooking for Engineers website.  Published September 2, 2005.

Dooley, Beth, and Lucia Watson.  Savoring Seasons of the Northern Heartland.  Alfred A. Knopf: New York, 1994.

Gates, Stefan.  "Homemade Gravlax".  From the Gastronaut website and the BBC Book Gastronaut, copyright 2006.

Henderson, Helene.  The Swedish Table.  University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis, 2005.

Nett Lake Wild Rice.  "Recipes".  Copyright Bois Forte Band of Chippewa.

Seafood from Norway. "Norwegian Gravlax with Whole Grain Mustard Dill Sauce".  From the Seafood from Norway website.  Published 2005.  Copyright Eksportutvalget for fisk (Norwegian Seafood Export Council), 2005.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Minnesota" page and other pages, and the Food Timeline State Foods link to "Minnesota".