A friend from Minnesota gave me this recipe about 15 years ago. It’s one of our favorites when soup (cold) weather arrives. We’re still waiting (sigh) for soup weather in Texas this year, but we’re enjoying our soup, anyway, even if we’re wearing shorts while we eat it! Boy especially likes this soup. It is a great first course, if served in very small cups, or add a salad and some bread and make a meal of it! The salad pictured above was an odd mixture of romaine hearts, black beans, purple onion, chopped tomato and chopped, toasted pecans with sun-dried tomato vinaigrette. I have a tendency to throw whatever I have in the fridge on top of a salad. Sometimes they turn out great (like this one), but sometimes they’re just weird. If I had it to do again, I would have left either the pecans or the beans out – they weren’t a good combination, but not awful….
Wild Rice Soup
1/4 cup minced onion
4 Tbsp butter
1/3 cup flour
4 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup frozen green peas or grated fresh carrot
(I usually use carrots, but didn’t have any today, so I used peas)
1/2 cup cubed ham
2 1/2 cups cooked wild rice (I cook it with chicken broth, for extra flavor)
2 Tbsp. chopped fresh Italian parsley
2 cups milk
salt and pepper to taste
Saute the onion in the butter until soft. Turn heat off and whisk in the flour until well blended. Gradually pour in the chicken stock, whisking to incorporate. Cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, until very slightly thickened (5 – 10 minutes?). Add peas or carrots, ham, rice and parsley. Stir to combine and cook over low heat for 5 more minutes or so. Gradually pour in as much milk as necessary to reach the proper soup consistency (you may need slightly more or less than 2 cups). Simmer 2 or 3 more minutes to allow the soup to warm through. Salt and pepper to taste.
If you’re feeling like REALLY rich soup you can substitute half-and-half for some (or even all) of the milk, but we like a slightly lighter flavor so that we can make a meal of this. I would only make it with all cream if you are planning to serve VERY small portions.
Other possible variations:
Add a little finely diced celery (about 1/4 cup?) to the onion. Saute the celery with the onion and proceed with the recipe as usual.
Add some sliced or chopped, sauteed mushrooms (about 1 cup?) to the soup when you add the rice and ham.
Substitute chopped, cooked chicken for the ham.