Mining in the Field of Art

1 Response to “Tabouli”

1. 1 zerne October 28, 2006 at 12:47 am

   A friend of my mother’s stayed with us this past week. She was born in Bagdad, spent her early adult life in Lebanon & Egypt. She made Tabouli twice while she was here. She makes it a little different than I do… [I tried to match the tabouli that one of my favorite restaurants made.. the owner was from Syria]

   1/4 - 1 cup dried Bulgar Wheat [I prefer more wheat some like less]
   Lots of Parsley [take the stems off & chop finely]
   2 Tomatoes [seed & chop finely]
   1 Cucumber [peel, seed & chop finely]
   Mint to taste [take the stems off & chop finely]
   Boullion Cube
   Thyme to taste
   Pepper to taste
   Salt to taste
   1 - 2 Lemons to taste
   Olive Oil [I use about equal parts lemon & olive oil for small amounts]

   Her tabouli has less bulgar wheat than I use. She used about a 1/4 cup of the dried bulgar. [I used about 1 cup maybe a little more.] She boiled the wheat in water, similar to making oatmeal or cream of wheat.

   I boil water in a tea kettle, placed the cup+ of bulgar in a metal bowl, added a beef boullion cube, a pinch of thyme & a few grinds of pepper from the mill. I pour the boiling water over the bulgar & spices covering the grain by maybe 1/2″. I let that be absorbed by the wheat… when it is almost all absorbed I will taste it for texture… I is usually not yet done… and usually I will add hot water 2-3 times. [If I only have dried mint I will add it when I add the other spices before I pour the boiling water over the mixture]

   Tonight I was making the tabouli about an hour before dinner so once the bulgar was at the texture I wanted and the bulgar wheat absorbed most of the water and was the texture I like [al dente] I put a lot of ice and some water in a larger bowl… [both bowls were metal] place the smaller bowl with the wheat inside the larger bowl… the bulgar wheat was cooled in less than 15 minutes.

   Then I squeezed any excess water out of the wheat and added it to the chopped vegetables.

   I like serving it with humos, pita, stuffed grape leaves, leg of lamb, kabobs… etc.

   tonight we just had tabouli & vegetarian “meat balls” in mushroom soup gravy…

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