Indigo jones

Somehow, I found myself with lots of parsley this week. I had purchased more than I needed for cooking, and then I got a huge bunch in my CSA selection.  When life gives you parsley, make tabbouleh!

Tabbouleh is a Middle Eastern dish, made from bulgur wheat, with copious amounts of parsley and fresh mint, tomato and cucumber.

Of course, I can never leave well enough alone, and had to make a classic dish my own. I also didn’t have any bulgur available, so couscous seemed close enough to get the point across. Substituting Israeli couscous (a much larger “grain” than regular couscous) gave the dish a whole new texture. And since Israel is in the right geographical vicinity, I thought, why not?

Tabbouleh

Boil stock or water in a pan and add the Israeli couscous. Turn off the heat, cover it, and allow the liquid to absorb for about 5 minutes or so. Toss with a fork and place it in a large bowl. As a rule of thumb, use twice the amount of liquid as dried couscous.

Chop 1 bunch of parsley leaves, and one bunch of fresh mint leaves. Mix into the couscous. Add the juice of 2 or 3 lemons, and a healthy dose of olive oil.

Mix in 1 cucumber that has been seeded and chopped into bite sized pieces. Add in several diced tomatoes.  A diced scallion or two is optional. (I hate them, so I didn’t use any, but that’s what makes an “unrecipe” so much fun! )

Season with sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.

Mix well, and allow the flavors to mingle for a while before serving. This is a great make-ahead dish, as the longer it sits, the more the flavors blend.

Check the seasonings before serving and enjoy!

Tags: Food, vegetarian

This entry was posted on September 24, 2012 at 7:05 am and is filed under Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.