Wild Rice Custard with Wožapi Sauce and Alegría Crumble - Ismael Popoca Aguilar

This week in the Indigenous Food Lab Test Kitchen, NATIFS culinary leader Ismael Popoca Aguilar shares the award-winning dessert that earned us first place at the Midtown Global Market Dessert Competition. This dish features a rich wild rice custard, topped with a vibrant, tart wožapi sauce and finished with a crisp Alégria crumble. A true celebration of Aztec and Lakota culinary traditions, this dessert brings together bold flavors and cultural heritage in every bite. Video Chapters: 00:00 - Intro 01:03 - Wožapi sauce 02:23 - Puffing wild rice and amaranth 06:23 - Maple sugar mixture 08:48 - Combining puffed ingredients with maple sugar mixture 10:46 - Making the wild rice custard 11:59 - Blending wožapi sauce 13:37 - Set custard for 20-30 minutes 14:00 - Assembly 15:40 Tasting For this video, Ismael created a version of the recipe that yields about 12 desserts. Below is a home-cook-friendly version that makes approximately 6-8 servings. Enjoy! Recipe: CUSTARD: 1 cup Hand Harvested Wild Rice 1 ½ cup Maple syrup 1 qt Non-dairy milk 1 tsp Vanilla extract 1 pinch Salt METHOD: Bring water to a boil, add wild rice and as soon as the rice starts to boil again strain the water and rinse the rice. Return the rice to the stove with 1qt of water, and ½ cup of maple syrup, let it simmer and cook until the rice is over cooked and the water has evaporated. Once the water has evaporated you should have about 1qt of cooked rice. Add the rest of maple syrup (1 cup), non-diary milk, vanilla extract and salt and let it simmer for about 5 min. And turn it off. Let it cool down for a few minutes. Before it is completely cold, transfer the rice mix to a blender and blend at a high speed until the mix is soft and transfer the custard to individual ramekins. Fill up about half the ramekin with the custard mix. Refrigerate until ready to serve. WOŽAPI SAUCE 2 cups of mixed berries 2 Tbsp Maple syrup (optional) METHOD: Bring berries to boil with some water Once the berries are soft, transfer the mix to the blender and blend until soft. Add maple syrup if desired. Refrigerate until needed. SWEET AMARANTH (ALEGRÍA) 1/4 cup Amaranth 3 Tbsp Wild rice ½ Tbsp Maple syrup or honey 6 Tbsp Maple sugar 2 Tbsp water 3 Tbsp oz Pupking seeds 1 oz dried cranberries METHOD: To puff the amaranth, heat up a stainless steel fry pan at medium high heat. Once the pan is hot add one tablespoon of amaranth to the pan and stir. The amaranth should start popping almost immediately. Once the amaranth stops popping remove the pan from the heat and transfer the puffed amaranth to a fine strainer. This will help get rid of the unpopped amaranth. Repeat step 1 until all the amaranth is puffed. To puff the wild rice you will need to follow the same steps on the amaranth (step #1) Mix water, maple sugar and honey (or maple syrup) on a small sauce pan. Heat up and dissolve the sugar. Heat it up until it boils and let it boil for about 5 minutes. Meanwhile mix seeds, puffed amaranth, puffed wild rice, and dried cranberries. Once the sugar has been boiling for about 5 minutes, mix it with the seeds and stir quickly until all the seeds have a coat of sugar. ASSEMBLY: Once you are ready to serve the dessert, take the ramekins out of refrigeration and add: 1 Tbsp of Wojape sauce 1-2 oz of sweet amaranth Subscribe for more Indigenous food knowledge and recipes! Click here to SUBSCRIBE: https://shorturl.at/htTv5 Learn more about NATIFS and the Indigenous Food Lab here: https://natifs.org/ Or if you find yourself in Minnesota, stop by and visit us at the Midtown Global Market building: 920 E Lake St, Minneapolis, MN 55407 ▶▶▶Shop for Indigenous products through our online marketplace: https://iflmarket.square.site/ ▶▶▶Find our recipes here: https://shorturl.at/3OEp6 ▶▶▶Are you an indigenous chef or knowledge keeper and want to get featured in the IFL test kitchen? Send us an email to: education@natifs.org Follow us: ​⁠ @IndigenousFoodLab ​⁠ @NATIFS About NATIFS: North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems (NĀTIFS), founded by The Sioux Chef Sean Sherman, is dedicated to addressing the economic and health crises affecting Native communities by re-establishing Native foodways. We imagine a new North American food system that generates wealth and improves health in Native communities through food-related enterprises. This work is funded in part by MHC with money from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund that was created with the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4, 2008