Given your description, I would suggest Ocaml or F#.
The ML family are generally very good in terms of a strong type system. The emphasis on recursion, coupled with pattern matching, is also clear.
Where I am a bit hesitant is on the rewarding to learn part. Learning them was rewarding for me, no doubt. But given your restrictions and your description of what you want, it seems you are not actually looking for something much more different than Haskell.
If you didn't put your restrictions I would have suggested Python or Erlang, both of which would take you out of your comfort zone.
