Saturday, July 16, 2011

Rosie Makes Tabbouleh.

With the heat of summer bearing down, I like to have cool, refreshing salads in the fridge. One of my favorites is tabbouleh - a Middle Eastern dish originally from Lebanon.

Tabbouleh

1 cup bulgur wheat

2 cups boiling water

1 cucumber, peeled, seeded, and diced

2 scallions, sliced

½ cup parsley, chopped (I prefer Italian flat-leaf to curly.)

¼ cup mint, chopped

4 medium tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and juiced

3 miniature multicolored sweet peppers, diced (That’s what’s available in my garden now. You could use a regular bell pepper. I happen to like the green, yellow, orange, and red colors of my home-grown peppers.)

Dressing:

2 lemons (1/2 cup juice)

½ cup olive oil

Freshly ground salt and pepper

Pour boiling water over bulgur wheat in a heatproof bowl,

cover, and let stand about 2 hours.

Drain any excess liquid.

Transfer bulgur to a bowl and toss with rest of ingredients.

Gradually whisk olive oil into lemon juice

and season with salt and pepper.

Pour dressing over tabbouleh.

To prepare bulgur wheat, simply pour boiling water over the wheat to cover. Cover the bowl and let it sit for a couple of hours.
Meanwhile, prepare the additions.
Peel, seed, and dice a cucumber.
Chop two scallions.
Peel, seed, juice, and chop up your maters. Finely chop the parsley and mint. And I don't think you can have too much parsley in this.
I have these miniature peppers growing and they're all different colors. Adds to the pretty!
Here's what the bulgur looks like after two hours. Fluff it.
Mix all ingredients.
For the dressing, whisk 1/2 cup olive oil into 1/2 cup lemon juice and pour over top. Mix thoroughly.
I like to serve these in little Tostito scoops, but you could serve it on romaine lettuce if you like for a more traditional serving.
If you want to go with a Mediterranean flair, then pick some medium sized grape leaves. Wash them.
Add salt to a pan of water and bring to a boil.
Blanch grape leaves for a few seconds. You'll see the color change.
Then plunge leaves into ice water. That one little bright leaf didn't want to cooperate with me.
Drain leaves, add tabbouleh, and roll. I'm not a good grape leaf roller.
Enjoy!

3 comments:

Dogmama13 said...

Miss Rosie, thanks for the idea. I am going to use Quinoa because I can't eat bulger but I know it's going to be really god. I can't wait to make this. You have so many fantastic ideas! Love the tostitos way to serve too.

Did you buy a new PC? I *need* my KAMB fix every day! Any wod from B&B? Cheers, Barbara

Dogmama13 said...

Opps, that should be "word" but "wad" works where they are concerend too, heh.

Rosie Hawthorne said...

Hey Miss Dogmama, I had to buy a new desktop, but my laptop is still working.

And no, I haven't heard from B&B. I don't expect to. I don't imagine they look at the comments on their site. I did contact RightLeftStudio who designed the site. (I emailed them.) Might try giving them a call on Monday. Either take the picture out or give me credit. They really should know better.