Tabouleh is an excellent salad. People think you're cool if you can make tabouleh. Boys will want to know you, and girls will want to be you. It's also something that you can make using your own sensibilities and flair once you know the gist. It's healthy for you too! What a winner!
For the uninitiated, burghul is cracked wheat. It's available from The Spice Store, and most supermarkets.
Ingredients
1 cup dry burghul
1 big bunch of parsley, curly or Italian style according to taste - this time I used curly
1 bright red juicy tomato
2-3 spring onions
1/4 cup of mint leaves
1 clove of garlic
1-2 lemons, depending on how juicy they are
Salt
Cracked black pepper
Method
1. Put the cup of burghul in a bowl. Cover it with water and stand for an hour. If it soaks up all the water in that hour, give it some more. When it is soft, drain off the extra moisture and put it back in the bowl that you plan to serve the whole dish in.
2. Slice the tomato into 4 quarters. Use a teaspoon to pull out the remaining seeds. Dice into small, square-shaped pieces. Add to bowl. Slice up your spring onions, nice and small. Roll the mint leaves around each other so that they look like a cigar and use a sharp, sharp knife to mince them up. If your knife is a bit blunt, then use kitchen shears instead. Put the mint and onion in the bowl and stir it around a bit.
3. Mince the garlic, very finely. Add it to the juice of one lemon. Pour over the rest of the salad, and stir it about until everything is coated. Taste it. If it isn't lemony enough, add another half a lemon, or a lemon's juice. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve in the mixing bowl, allowing people to dish it out for themselves.
Here's some tabouleh in context with some spiced beetroot dip, home made hummus, and felafel. This dinner was served with fresh pita bread made by the wonderful Tom. Yum yum.
*Keeps well if you cover the bowl with cling wrap and store it in the fridge.
*If you wanted to, you could peel your tomatoes as well as seed them, but that's not entirely necessary if you're a lazy bastard like myself. Hell, I'm bothering to seed the tomatoes. What more do you want!
*You could also put in a seeded, diced, Lebanese cucumber if you liked.
