Tasty tabbouleh
I love salads.
This might be a little surprising, given the conspicuous absence of any salads here on A Sweet Muddle before today, but I do. I love making them. I love creating new variations of them. And of course, I love eating them.
When it comes to salads, the options are endless. Along with the obvious variations of salad leaves, there are also nuts, grains, pulses, fruits, cheeses, and so many other sorts of tasty morsels to choose from. And then there’s the dressings… don’t even get me started on the options there!
So I think we’ve now established, I’m quite partial to the odd salad.
Somewhat lacking in inspiration today, rather than experimenting with the contents of my fridge I’ve revisited an old classic. A salad I haven’t had in years. Tabbouleh.
This traditional Middle Eastern salad is now described as a global salad, as its popularity has seen it make its way onto menus around the world. And for good reason too!
But, until recently tabbouleh has been a bit of a misunderstood salad in the West. Apparently it’s the parsley, not the bulgar wheat, which is the star of this salad. I read a good article published by the Guardian a couple of months back on the matter for those of you who may be interested.
Unfortunately, my fridge didn’t contain enough of the star ingredient for this salad to pass the parsley test, so perhaps I should actually rename this version a “tabbouleh inspired” bulgar wheat salad…
In any case, it’s a tasty take on this classic dish and takes no time at all to throw together.
- 150g bulgar wheat
- juice of 1 lemon
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 3 ripe tomatoes (approx. 700g), diced into small cubes
- ½ cucumber, peeled and diced into small cubes
- 1 small red onion, finely diced
- 1 medium bunch of parsley, leaves picked and finely chopped
- 1 medium bunch of mint, leaves picked and finely chopped
- Put the bulgar wheat in a bowl and add 250 ml boiling water. Leave to sit for approximately 10 minutes or until all the water has all been absorbed, then fluff up with a fork.
- Place the cucumber, tomatoes, onions and herbs in a large bowl and toss together well. Add the bulgar wheat, olive oil and lemon juice and season well to taste.
Jenni Sivertsen-Harding
22/11/2013 at 8:20 pm (11 years ago)Thanks for that recipe Rachel.. remember our last meal together in London was at Noura! Lebanese is my most favourite desert island cuisine. I’ve never had a recipe for tabblouleh so can’t wait to make it with some slow roasted Lebanese spices shoulder of lamb
love Jen
Rachel
22/11/2013 at 9:29 pm (11 years ago)Hi Jen, I do remember that lunch, it was lovely 🙂 As a die hard lover of Lebanese food, I’d be interested to hear what you think of my take on tabbouleh. You should also try out the recipe in the Guardian article. I’m definitely going to try making a more traditional tabbouleh in the near future as well x