Last week I had a really profound experience lunching at St. John in London. The restaurant, established by Fergus Henderson in 1994, is a city institution and unapologetic homage to British food, which is often overlooked and underrated. It was a life-changing meal for me for a few reasons. First, because it was a place I’d been itching to visit for a really long time, and it lived up to the hype. Second, because it forced me to think about how we eat meat- the parts we consider prime and the parts we waste (I ordered ox heart and it was absolutely delicious, very lightly seasoned, sliced paper-thin and served with chips). And lastly, because it made me appreciate the beauty of simple food.
As you can probably tell by both the title and picture of this post, this isn’t a British recipe. It’s something I made a couple of months ago, thinking very little of it while putting it together and expecting very little of the finished product, because the elements of the dish were so simple. The recipe was essentially an even more streamlined (if that’s possible) version of tabbouleh, and I was looking for some new cold salads to bring for lunch.
The resulting dish was eye opening. In putting together just three ingredients (bulgur, chickpeas, parsley) that I pretty much always have in my kitchen or leftover in the fridge (and how often are you letting that unused parsley wither away in there?) and topping it with the most basic version of a dressing you could think of, you can create something that is hearty and healthy and whose flavors really sing.
I’ve really been experimenting with bulgur this year and have stocked up on coarse bulgur for dishes like this pilaf as well as the fine grade version for recipes like this one and its more well-known relative, tabbouleh. And while coarse bulgur, cooked for a long time like rice, is delicious, I love how quick and easy it is to just soak the fine stuff in cold water until it’s tender and ready to be combined with lemon juice, olive oil and a few other key ingredients. It’s a blank canvas, and frankly one I just can’t get enough of.
Ingredients
- 1 cup fine- or medium-ground bulgur
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed
- Juice of 2 1/2 to 3 lemons
- Salt and black pepper
- 7 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- One 14-oz. can chickpeas, drained
- 3 1/2 cups loosely packed finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
- 1 cup loosely packed finely chopped mint leaves
Instructions
- Soak the bulgur in plenty of cold water for 20 minutes, until tender, then drain and squeeze out the excess water.
- In a bowl, mix the garlic, lemon juice, salt, pepper and olive oil. Soak the drained chickpeas in this for 10 minutes, then stir in the bulgur.
- Mix in the chopped herbs when you are ready to serve.
Notes
From Arabesque
