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.

Beautiful plump peas

The harvest from Camel Community Supported Agriculture includes some beautiful plump peas in this week’s share.  Otherwise we are providing a similar selection of vegetables to last week. 

The broad bean glut continues so please think of different ways to use these versatile vegetables. Please pick up your box from St Kew Harvest, as detailed in the e-mail to members. 

Subscribers can expect all or some of of the following: -

• potatoes (Arran Pilot)
• onions
• broad beans
• beetroot
• peas
• salad pack / lettuce
• cucumber
• courgettes
• turnips

 A definitive list and recipe ideas for beetroot will be posted once the boxes have been packed on Friday.

A warm and open welcome

Around 60 adults and 20 children joined in the fun at Camel Community Supported Agriculture’s first Open Day and were rewarded with glorious sunshine and not a hint of rain . 

Visitors ignored the threatening storm clouds and came out in their droves on Open Farm Sunday to see our vegetable growing project in north Cornwall.

They built bee nests, joined guided tours, planted lettuces and nasturtiums, made scarecrows,  watched a sheep shearing demonstration, sat chatting in the sun and played on hay and straw bales.

Assorted individuals, couples and families travelled from a 30-mile radius to give us some constructive feedback on our efforts to make local food work: -

Fantastic project.  Amazing!  Brilliant!

An excellent idea – keep it going

Great for the whole family.  Liked the things for children to do

Lovely, interesting day – will come again

Loved the tour – very inspiring

Learned a lot about not needing to dig.  Hurrah – compost!

Need to encourage more people to learn where food comes from and to eat seasonally

Excellent initiative – more farm events would be great

We provided a barbeque, home-made-cakes and cold drinks.  Hot drinks and cream teas were available at the farm shop.

 In scenes reminiscent of Eric Carle’s children’s classic The Very Hungry Caterpillar, our guests and helpers munched their way through a  shoulder of organic moorland mutton, a mound of sausages, beefburgers, veggie burgers and vegetable kebabs, several bowls of homegrown salad leaves, radishes and spring onions, 8 slices of rhubarb loaf,  10 rhubarb muffins,  12 slices of coconut sponge, 16 chocolate buns, 24 pieces of lemon drizzle cake, 30 iced cupcakes, 40 flapjacks…

And the verdict among Camel CSA members? 

A job very well done! We are so lucky to have a group of such enthusiastic, committed, capable, lovely people

I think we have all pulled together really well

We have managed to spread the word to so many people and explain what we’re doing and why we’re doing it

It was so lovely to see it all coming together and the atmosphere it created

Most of all we have been able to show that we are a “community” working together

We can’t wait to be part of this again!

They deserve a medal!

We’re having an extra mid-week volunteer session on Thursday as there’s so much work to do at Camel Community Supported Agriculture.  Charlotte, Kitty and Mike S have already put their names forward.

We need to plant out brassicas, celeriac, parsley and spring onion plants and, if we have time, sow sweetcorn and squash seeds.

If you’re able to give a hand, we’ll be on the site this Thursday 28 May between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m.  Click here for directions. 

If you can’t make it on Thursday morning, why not give expert grower Jeremy Brown a ring on 07971762227 to find out when else it might be convenient to help out.

Medals all round

Last Sunday’s team deserves special praise.  Everyone got down on their knees and hand weeded. 

The onion, shallot and Swiss chard beds were comparatively easy to tackle, but weeding the carrots by hand was an exacting and extremely fiddly job. The air was blue at times.  We’ll savour every single one of those carrots when they appear in our weekly vegetable boxes!

Grateful thanks to volunteer expert growers Jane, Jeremy and Mark and to their willing helpers – Beverley, Cath, Carolyn, Charlotte, John, Kitty, Mike H and Mike S.

There’s so much effort going into preparing the first vegetable shares, which should start to be available in mid-June.  A lot of thought is being given to when and how they will be picked, packed and distributed.  

We’ll be working on the site as usual next Sunday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.   Do come along and enjoy the fresh air and exercise.  It’s not all hard work.  It’s good company – and fun too.

Sunday jobs – Whitsun weekend

We need all the help we can get on Sunday.  The growing season has hit us with a vengeance at Camel Community Supported Agriculture .  Weeds are shooting up – they love this showery weather! 

Expert grower Jane Mellowship says: -

“On Sunday we have lots to get done. Brassica, celeriac, parsley and spring onion plugs need to be planted out, there’s sweetcorn and squash to sow and plenty of weeding too.

Hope to see you all then!”

Mid-week volunteering

Members are more than welcome to volunteer to work during the week - not just on Sunday mornings.

Give expert grower Jeremy Brown a ring on 07971762227 to find out when it might be convenient to help out on Camel Community Supported Agriculture’s vegetable beds.  Weather permitting, of course!

He’s there every day as a member of the farming family who own the land and who have generously offered it rent-free to Camel CSA for the first few months.  He grows his own vegetables on the adjoining plot to sell at St Kew Harvest Farm Shop.

Jeremy can arrange to meet you on the site and explain what jobs need to be done.   These might include sowing seeds in the potting shed, spreading compost on new beds and weeding around our emerging crops.

Last Sunday we got several new beds raked, fresh compost spread and more seeds sown, including an extra row of peas and some more radishes.  We planted out beetroot and chard seedlings and hoed up weeds in the pea, onion and shallot beds. 

The devastation to the first rows of peas that had to be replaced was caused by the pea and bean weevil, not slugs.  Apologies all round.  Either the resident pheasant or a partridge has been having a go at the spring onions, but the damage is not lasting.

A big thank you to Sunday’s energetic crew – volunteer expert growers Jane, Jeremy B and Mark N and volunteer members Carolyn, Charlotte, Diana, Kitty, Mike H and Mike S.

We had a useful discussion during the tea break about the kind of activities we want to organise for the Open Day on Sunday 7 June – Open Farm Sunday.  Any suggestions welcome. 

Click here to view our entry on the Open Farm Sunday website.