Tabbouleh – AKA: Herby Earthy Goodness
From the Levant hails a delightful herbaceous dish called tabbouleh (ta-BOO-leh). Flat leafed parsley can be used, but curly leaf parsley is from what I understand more traditional. One can make this as an alternative to full leaf salads, but one way I like to use it is stuffed into a pita with some grilled meat and hummus and/or tzatziki (recipe coming soon…). Bulgur wheat is an aspect of this dish, but not the main character as I’ve unfortunately so often seen prepared in delis. The wheat bulgur is merely to add an extra layer of substance, but if you really want, feel free to add as much as your heart desires. This is part of a Greek/Eastern Mediterranean full recipe found with the links here:
Cast Iron Grilled Chicken Kebabs
(Serving Size – 4-6…or closer to 4 on the Mes scale)
3 cups (slightly compacted) Curly Leaf Parsley, chopped
1 cup Persian Cucumber, diced
1 cup Tomato, diced
¾ (or 1) cups cooked Wheat Bulgur
1.5 (or 2) cups water
⅓ cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil (plus more to finish)
⅓ cup Mint, chopped
⅓ cup Green Onion, diced
2 medium cloves Garlic, minced
3 tbsp Lemon Juice
¼ tsp Sea Salt (plus more to taste)
Pinch of Pepper
This one is a quickie. Let’s get chopped!
1.) The first step is to actually prepare the bulgur wheat. My recipe asks for ¾ cup bulgur and therefore would require 1 ½ cups of water, but I like to do 1 and 2 respectively just in case I want to add more bulgur or just want a snack later. Bring those 2 cups to a boil and then shut it off. Add your bulgur and cover and walk away. Just waaalk away. Don’t look at it for half an hour, then definitely look at it when you take that lid off. You can make the rest of the recipe while letting it cook and then cool.
2.) Take your beautiful, lush, viridescent parsley and roughly chop into about 3 cups slightly compacted and measured in a measuring cup. Dump it all into your largest mixing bowl. Then, chop, dice, and mince the rest of your ingredients: the cucumber, the tomato, the garlic, the mint, and the green onions. Make sure the bulgur is cool enough and put that 3/4 cup in. I usually just make the full cup because my mathing skills don’t always math. Now you have a little snack to celebrate the fact that you could actually follow the darned recipe.
3.) Lastly, add the olive oil, lemon juice, and salt and pepper and mix it all up. Once mixed, taste to see if the salt, lemon, and oil are to your liking and add more if necessary. Pepper, much like the bulgur, is also not a main character here, but you’ll miss it if it’s not there, so use it sparingly. A pinch as I stated in the ingredients list. And you’re pretty much done! Like many dishes, it does actually taste better once it has a few hours of sitting covered in the fridge. So make well before you plan on eating it and take out half an hour before serving to at least bring it up more towards room temp which helps release the flavor. It will keep for a good three days in the fridge before getting weird. So there you go. Tabbouleh it up to your heart’s content.
Leave a comment