How's it going my brothers and my sisters?
I am Hilah.
Welcome to Hilah Cooking.
Today I am gonna show you how to make tabouli which is a Middle Eastern salad made with
wheat and it's very delicious and it's got vegetables in it, and it's a great thing to
a potluck or something if you're going to be sitting outside all day because there's
no mayonnaise in it, okay?
Do you see where I am going with this?
Great!
Okay, let's get started on the perfect summer salad.
Okay, so I've got here some bulgar which is wheat grains that have been par cooked and
then cracked and then re-dried, so they cook really fast.
I've got a cup of it here.
I am going to pour into, I've got a cup of boiling water in here, and then I am just
going to let it soak and it absorbs the liquid, maybe for 10 minutes or so.
Okay, now I'll just set this aside, and we'll make a dressing that's basically just lemon
juice and olive oil and some seasonings.
So I've got a quarter cup of fresh lemon juice, and I am gonna add a about a third of a cup
of olive oil.
Maybe I should do this down here.
I am just gonna make it just over the half-cup mark, whatevs, eyeball it.
It's not that important.
It's not rocket science.
Okay, then I add some salt and pepper.
Salt, pepper.
Okay, and now I am gonna mince up some garlic, super, super tiny.
I have a garlic press, but it's more of a pain in the ass to clean than it actually
helps with garlic, so I don't normally use it, but you can use one if you like.
You do what you want to.
Okay, this looks good.
It looks like the pre-minced garlic that you buy at the grocery store which is what we're
going for.
You can also use that if you'd rather, but I like fresh garlic.
It's a little spicier.
Okay, dropping that in, and then I took the liberty of cutting up my vegetables already.
I have got a cup of tomato, a cup of cucumber, and a cup of parsley, and a little handful
of cilantro, and I have got like half a cup of just onion here that I soaked in ice water
to make it sort of crisp up and then it will also take away some of the strongness of the
raw onions, and now what I have got here is some mint.
I am just gonna pull off the leaves, and then I'll show you how to do a little chiffonade
cut.
Okay, so I've got a little bit of mint leaves.
This is how we do it.
You get some leaves, use the big ones, Christ Almighty what is all over this place.
Okay, stack 'em up, and then you roll them up or just fold it over a couple of times
like my big, fat sausage fingers do, and then just run your knife through it as thin as
you can to get little, tiny strips, and you can use this technique to do like basil leaves,
basil leaves, whatevs, there we go.
I am gonna do that with the rest of this, and then we'll assemble.
Okay, so we've got all this prepared, I drained my onions, and now I am going to mix everything
together in my bowl.
Okey doke.
So all the water is absorbed, and the bulgar is softened but still has a nice bite to it.
I am going to start.
I am gonna through in some onions.
Okay, I kind of might have got a little heavy there, so about a half-a-cup of onions, and
then cucumber and tomato, and my herbs.
It's a very herby salad.
If you have some dill, you can add some fresh dill.
A little bit of oregano would be good.
Parsley and mint are kind of the two things that it's based on, but I like cilantro too.
Now I am gonna just pour the dressing over it, and voila!
So as this sits the bulgar will absorb the lemon juice and so it's probably best to let
it sit for maybe an hour before you dig in, but F that noise.
I am gonna go ahead and dig in right now, just give it a little taste shall we?
Some tomato and some onion and some cucumber.
Mmmmm!
It's really nice.
It's really crunchy.
It's bright and lemony and delicious and it would go great next to some grilled meats
and/or vegetables.
So I am gonna let this sit in the fridge for an hour or so, and it will be even better,
and check out the website HilahCooking.com for the recipe and other recipes and I will
see you later.