Seasonal recipe No 6 – Tabbouleh (bulgar wheat salad)

Bulgar wheat salad has an earthy taste and uses an abundance of parsley, which features in Camel Community Supported Agriculture’s veg boxes this week.  This well-tried version of tabbouleh comes from Claudia Roden’s classic A Book of Middle Eastern Food.

Soaking time: 30 minutes
Preparation time: about 15 minutes

Serves 6

Ingredients
250g fine bulgar wheat
3 tablespoons finely chopped spring onions
Salt and black pepper
About one and a half teacups finely chopped flat-leaved parsley
3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh mint
4 tablespoons olive oil
4 tablespoons lemon juice
Cooked vine leaves, raw lettuce or tender cabbage leaves (to serve)

Method
Soak the bulgar wheat in water for about half an hour before preparing the salad.  It will expand enormously.  Drain and squeeze out as much moisture as possible with your hands.  Spread out to dry further on a cloth.

Mix the bulgar wheat with the chopped onions, squeezing with your hands to crush the onions so that their juices penetrate the wheat.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.  Add the parsley, mint, olive oil and lemon juice, and mix well.  Taste to see if more salt, pepper or lemon are required.  The salad should be distinctly lemony.

Tabbouleh is traditionally served in individual plates lined with boiled vine leaves, or raw lettuce or cabbage leaves.  People scoop the salad up with more leaves, served in a separate bowl beside it.

Notes
Claudia Roden adds: “As with most dishes, the preparation is highly individual.  Quantities of ingredients vary with every family, but parsley is always used abundantly.  This is a great Lebanese favourite.”  More about Claudia Roden.

Compare her relaxed approach to Yotam Ottolenghi, chef/patron at Ottolenghi in London.  He insists there’s a right way and a wrong way to make this refreshing summer salad.  Click here to find out what he claims is the right way to do it.

Click here to see all the recipes that Camel CSA members have recommended so far.

What’s in the boxes

You’ve guessed it!  We can expect more chard in the boxes this week plus a selection from potatoes, onions, spinach, white cabbage, courgettes, cucumber, salad leaves, parsley and spring onions.

The late start to Camel Community Supported Agriculture’s first planting season, the challenging growing conditions and the rising total of veg boxes are all taking their toll on the crops cultivated by our volunteers.  We are gradually buying in more vegetables from our own expert growing team.

Mark Norman, one of our expert growers, reflects the observations of his vegetable growing colleagues:

“All vegetable growers have experienced three bad years in a row.  The weather has been atrocious across Britain.  All over the country, growers are complaining.   For instance, the beans are not pollinating properly.  The supermarkets are coping as they are importing from abroad.”

In spite of this, Camel CSA’s volunteers continue to turn out in all weathers.  Thanks to last week’s picking team of Cath, Charlotte, Fiona, Mike H and Robert.  Trish did the maths and masterminded the packing of the vegetable boxes.

The growing team took advantage of a dry morning on Sunday to plant out the remaining 10 rows of brassicas and cover them with fleece.  We put in more than 750 plants, including Savoy cabbage (Vertus variety), cauliflower (Thalassa), Brussels sprouts (Igor and Darkmar) and red cabbage (Red Rum).

Thank you to expert growers Jane and Jeremy and to Carolyn, Cath, Charlotte, Danny, Kayleigh, Kitty, Mike H, Mike S. and six-year-old Haydn.

Now the planting’s over, it’s time to start lifting and storing our bumper crop of onions.  And we need to make a concerted attack on the even larger crop of annual and perennial weeds…

Watch our latest video: Camel CSA - Our first harvest