Meze, Part 4: Lentil Tabouleh

My apologies to any middle eastern readers who might stumble upon my latest posts. I take it as a personal insult when foreigners make bastardized versions of mexican food, and yet, here I am, tweaking a salad that can pretty much be considered sacred in the arabic world.

It actually turned out pretty good, if I may say so myself, and after a little research, I found that there are a number of variations all across the region, so my idea of substituting lentils for bulgur didn't seem so bad.

Tabbouleh (or tabule, or tabouli), is arabic for "little spicy", and it combines pretty much all the basic flavors you will find at a meze table in one amazing salad.


So let's get cooking: Remember those lentils left over from last week's post? Yeah, that's what I used here. So start with 3 cups of cooked lentils, following the previously posted method, and add a large bunch of finely chopped parsley.

NOT cilantro, player!

To that, you will add 3 large roma tomatoes, seeded and finely chopped.

No finger chunks! I'm a fuckin kitchen ninja!

Next, take whatever kind of onion you have and finely chop about 1/3 of a cup of it and add it to the mix. You can also add garlic, but I used scallions and that would have been overkill.

Dress the salad by adding 1/2 a cup of olive oil and 1/2 a cup of lemon juice. Season with sea salt. It's ALWAYS sea salt with me. Unless I cook with Himalayan pink salt (which is actually not from Nepal). In that case, you will be warned.

Straining the seeds out of SEEDLESS lemons... fucking smart, hater

AWESOMENESS

Often served along lettuce leaves

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Tabbouleh (feeds a lot of people)
3 cups lentils (or, if you're going purist, hydrated bulgur)
1 large bunch of parsley, finely chopped (Lebanese tabbouleh tends to have a lot more)
3 roma tomatoes, seeded and finely chopped
1/3 of a cup onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup olive oil + 1/2 cup lemon juice
Sea salt and pepper

Optional: finely chopped cucumbers, mint, garlic and if you're going Turkish, pomegranate juice and tomato paste

1. Throw everything in a bowl
2. Let it rest for a few hours in the fridge
3. Awesomeness