Red Camargue and Wild Rice Salad with Tuna

This easy, healthy Red Camargue and wild rice salad is made with red Camargue and wild rice, yellow peppers and avocado. Serve it on your favorite mixed greens, topped with well-seasoned seared fresh tuna. It's light and refreshing but makes a satisfyingly filling meal.

All too often when I think of rice and dinner, it’s usually basmati or risotto that springs to mind. But occasionally, when my protein is unusual, like spice-encrusted tuna, something with more verve and bite is needed.

Always on the lookout for new and unusual starches, I brought home a bag of red Camargue and wild rice mix from my local Spinney’s grocery store the other day. Wild rice, I’m familiar with but I had never heard of red Camargue. Turns out that it is a new breed (type? species? variety?) of rice that is being cultivated in the south of France in an area called, not surprisingly, Camargue.

A little quick research reveals that the Camargue region of Provence grows a wide variety of rice, of which the red is only one, and it produces 75 percent of all the rice grown in France. Who knew? What I do know is that its nutty flavor and chewy texture make a beautiful rice salad. Add some greens and spice-encrusted seared tuna to make it into a meal.

This week my Sunday Supper friends are sharing summer dinner salads, salads that make a full meal. Since it's so hot in Dubai during the summer, we eat dinner salads a lot. We call them fancy salads and, in addition to the vegetables and greens, they must contain three more things: cheese, nuts and fruit. Occasionally meat is added, usually something off the grill like chicken or beef. This red Camargue and Wild Rice Salad with Tuna doesn't fulfill those standards of fancy salad, but it sure is pretty and delicious.

NOTE on cooking red Camargue and wild rice: I’ve learned from experience that colored rice, in general, needs a much longer cooking time than white rice, so I cooked this stuff in a big pot of salted boiling water, much as you would pasta, checking a grain or two periodically after 20 minutes, until the rice reached an acceptable cooked, yet still chewy, texture, which took closer to 30 or 35 minutes. Then I turned the fire off, strained off the water and put the rice back in the hot pot with the lid tightly closed for another 10-15 minutes.

Ingredients
For the salad:

1 1/2 cups cooked rice mix (about 4 1/2 oz or 125g before cooking)
2 tablespoons white balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons olive oil
Small handful green onion tops
Small handful cilantro or fresh coriander
1/2 small yellow bell pepper or capsicum
Sea salt
Black pepper
Mixed greens of your choice
1 ripe avocado, plus extra to serve, if desired

For the tuna:
2 tuna steaks – about 9 oz or 255g each
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon brown mustard seeds
1 teaspoon fennel
1 teaspoon coriander
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon mixed peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
2 tablespoons whole grain mustard
2 tablespoons olive oil – plus more for the frying pan

Method
Cook your rice mix as described above or according to your package instructions. Set aside to cool.

Roughly chop your green onion tops and cilantro. Cut your bell pepper into small, skinny strips.

Put your balsamic vinegar and olive oil in a bowl big enough to hold the whole salad. Add in the bell pepper slices and a good pinch of sea salt and a good couple of grinds of fresh black pepper.  Mix well.

Once the cooked rice is cool, add it to the bowl.

Add in the onion tops and cilantro and give the whole thing a good stir. Set aside and get on with the tuna.

Lay your tuna steaks out between paper towels to dry.

Use a mortar and pestle to grind the spices finely.

The pink is Himalayan sea salt.  Use any sea salt you have. 

Mix the whole grain mustard thoroughly with the olive oil.

Spread half of the mustard mixture on one side of the tuna steaks and then sprinkle with half of the spice mix.

Put the tuna on a piece of cling film, which will make it easier for you to flip it over into the frying pan.  Repeat the seasoning on the other side, first mustard, then spices.

Heat a non-stick frying pan until it is very hot and then drizzle in a little olive oil.  Cook one side of the tuna for just a couple of minutes before turning it to the other side.

Watch the side of the tuna and you can see the cooked part coming up.  You want to leave a good amount of pink still in the middle.

Sear the other side for just a minute or two and then remove from the pan and allow to rest for a few minutes.

Slice into thin pieces with a serrated knife, using a sawing motion so you don't mash the tuna.

Right before serving, peel and chop your avocado and fold it into the salad.

This tasty rice salad makes a full meal, heaped on some leafy greens with extra avocado, if desired, and topped with the fresh spice-encrusted tuna steak.

Do you love serving dinner salads when it's hot outside too? You are going to want to pin each of these Sunday Supper Summer Dinner Salad recipes. Summer is nigh!

Many thanks to our event manager, Em, and our event host Christie from A Kitchen Hoor’s Adventures for all of their behind-the-scenes work!

Sunday Supper Summer Dinner Salad Recipes

Brilliant Beef Salads

• Grilled Greek Steak Cobb with Greek Goddess Dressing by A Kitchen Hoor’s Adventures
• Grilled Keilbasa and Warm Mustard Viniagrette Salad by Our Good Life
• Healthy Steak Salad by Cricket’s Confections
• Roasted Tomato Vinaigrette Beef Salad by Sunday Supper Movement
• Southwestern Steak Salad by Hezzi-D’s Books and Cooks

Choice Chicken Salads

• BBQ Chicken Salad by Palatable Pastime
• BBQ Chicken Avocado Hemp Seed Salad by Family Foodie
• Caribbean Chicken Quinoa Salad by My Life Cookbook
• Chicken Fried Picnic Salad by The Freshman Cook
• Chicken Salad with Orange and Fennel by A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Chrissy’s Cobb Salad by Fantastical Sharing of Recipes
• Grilled Panzanella Salad with Chicken Sausage by A Mind “Full” Mom
• Rainbow Greek Chicken Salad by Jersey Girl Cooks

Superb Seafood Salads

• Beer Steamed Shrimp Salad by Cindy’s Recipes and Writings
• Crab Salad with Chili, Tomato and Avocado by Monica’s Table
• French Lentil Salad Nicoise-Style with Seared Tuna by Caroline’s Cooking
• Red Camargue and Wild Rice Salad with Tuna by Food Lust People Love
• Roasted Cod and Edamame Salad by The Bitter Side of Sweet
• Seared Ahi Tuna Salad with Key Lime-Dijon Vinaigrette by Gourmet Everyday
• Shrimp & Orange Salad with Citrus Vinaigrette by That Skinny Chick Can Bake

Vibrant Veggie Salads

• Chopped Greek Salad by Soulfully Made
• Farmers Market Quinoa Salad by And She Cooks
• Iron Chef Morimoto Inspired Salad by NinjaBaker.com
• Kale Guacamole Salad by Pies and Plots
• Kale Superfoods Salad by Sew You Think You Can Cook
• Loaded Chopped Salad by Simple and Savory
• Muffuletta Pasta Salad by Cosmopolitan Cornbread

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