Middle Eastern Tabbouleh

 

I completely missed my birthday. No, not my real birthday, but something almost as important: my blog's first birthday. The Fox Foodie turned one year old on January 30th and no one but me knew anything about it!

I was planning on having a birthday celebration. I thought it would be appropriate to blog a cake recipe of something of that sort like 17andBaking did on her first birthday, but there was a huge dilemma that stood in my way.

My hard drive crashed.

I was without a computer for over a week. And no computer equals no blogging. So, now I am celebrating my first birthday. Not with cake, but with tabbouleh. (Oh, and I bought myself a copy of Will Write for Food as a gift!).

 

I guess it's not very traditional to celebrate a birthday with tabbouleh instead of cake, but when you taste this Middle Eastern salad you will feel like its YOUR birthday! The bulgar (the most ancient form of wheat) gives the salad substance and a wonderful mouth-feel, where the combination of fresh mint and parsley give it an authentic straight-from-your-garden-in-July taste. Mix it with juicy cherry tomatoes (or in my case grape), the subtlety of green onions, the perfect crunch of cucumbers; and toss it with lemon juice, olive oil and salt and you have a winning combination.

This is going on my list of "weekly salads": salads that I make on Sunday or Monday and have in the fridge all week so that when I am hungry, or am needing to make and eat dinner in less than fifteen minutes (welcome to the life of a college student) I have a delicious, homemade and healthy option.

I hope you find this salad as fabulous as I do, because even though most of us wish we could, we cannot afford to eat at a Lebanese restaurant every day. But this salad will make you feel as if you had!

Tabbouleh

From Food Network, Barefoot Contessa Recipe

1 cup bulgar wheat
1 1/2 cups boiling water
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (2 lemons)
1/4 cup good olive oil
3 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 cup minced scallions, white and green parts (1 bunch)
1 cup chopped fresh mint leaves (1 bunch)
1 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley (1 bunch)
1 hothouse cucumber, unpeeled, seeded, and medium-diced
2 cups cherry tomatoes, cut in half
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Place the bulgar in a large bowl, pour in the boiling water, and add the lemon juice, olive oil, and 1 1/2 teaspoons salt. Stir, then allow to stand at room temperature for about 1 hour.

Add the scallions, mint, parsley, cucumber, tomatoes, 2 teaspoons salt, and the pepper; mix well.

Season, to taste, and serve or cover and refrigerate. The flavor will improve if the tabbouleh sits for a few hours.



Did you know?: The largest recorded dish of tabbouleh was created on October 24, 2009 in Beirut, Lebanon. It weighed 3557 kilograms and earned a Guinness World Record. (Thanks Wikipedia!)