Tabbouleh, revamped

Normally, when I think of tabbouleh, I think of something that I always sort of wished I enjoyed but which in reality always kind of overwhelmed me.  Usually, the intense green flavor of the parsley and mint knocked my socks off.  It wasn't until I read a bunch of tabbouleh recipes that I realized that, actually, that was sort of the point: a punch of fresh flavor and brightness with the chewy goodness of bulgur.  Either way, tabbouleh has never been my thing (even though it always seemed just out of reach--I wanted to be cool enough to like tabbouleh!).

Tabbouleh!  Only, not as punchy.

Rewind to last Saturday: I was going to a potluck for Alice's Garden, and my plan wasn't to make tabbouleh at all. I wanted to make a broccoli slaw, something with a yogurt dressing and maybe some curry powder and dried cranberries and almonds.  Well, turns out I completely imagined buying broccoli at the store.  There was absolutely no evidence in my fridge that the purported veggie had even come near it.  So, with only a few hours to go til the potluck, I needed to reassess.  I have taken the liberty of recreating my inner monologue for your enjoyment:

What do I have on hand?  Crap, where's the broccoli?  Wasn't it right here next to the celery...wait, did I put it back?  Maybe I changed my mind...shoot, I definitely changed my mind and put it back.  Well, now what am I going to do?  No time to go to the store.  Need a new idea.  (Open cupboard.)  Umm...what do I have a lot of?  Let's see...ooh, how about this barley stuff, I haven't used that yet and I have a whole quart jar of it.  Perfect.  Uhhh...what goes well with barley?  No idea.  (Back to the fridge.)  Hmm.  Okay.  Available green stuff: celery (meh), carrots (err..), kale....hmm.  What about kale? That could work...hmmm and here's a lime...I could do a citrusy vinaigrette to go with it...okay, got it.

So that's how this tabbouleh came to be.  I've recently become really enamored with raw kale salads, so I figured that idea could work combined with cooked whole-grain barley to make a hybrid grain/green salad.

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Recipe:  Kale and Barley Tabbouleh

Time: 1.5 hours, mostly passive

Yield: 5-6 c. salad, probably at least 8 hefty servings

1 c. whole-grain, hull-less barley (I used Bob's Red Mill from the grocery store)

3.5-4 c. vegetable broth

Combine barley and broth (or 4 c. water and some bouillon) and bring to a boil.  Cover and boil for about an hour, or until the barley is cooked.  It will be chewy and sort of pop in your mouth the way corn does when you bite it off the cob.

Cooked & drained barley.  I didn't rinse it or anything, just let
it drain in a strainer in the sink.

While the barley cooks, cut up the kale.  I used about half a bunch from the store.  It was probably 4-5 cups of greens when it was all fluffy.  Here's the secret, though: cut the kale really, really fine.  I cut it into strips about half an inch wide cross-wise, then turned my cutting board 90 degrees and did the same thing going the perpendicular way.  Then I just mowed through the kale in all directions some more until it was like kale confetti.

Barley + Kale.  This is only about a third of the kale that I used.

Once the barley is cooked, drain it and let it cool before you stir in the kale, or it will get all wilted.

Caution! Contains lime!

Now, make some dressing.  I juiced half a lime over the barley & kale, then poured on a few good glugs of olive oil (maybe 1/4 c. or so--eyeball it so it's not too greasy or anything).  Salt and plenty of pepper, and then a good stir so everything's combined.

This was really mild-tasting.  The kale wasn't too bitter or strong, and the lime wasn't too biting, either.  The barley sort of soaked up the dressing, too, so it wasn't too wet.  Overall, this was bright-tasting enough to be fresh but not too strong, such that a tabbouleh-novice like myself could handle it.

Enjoy!

SOPA

If you haven't heard anything about how the US government is trying to censor the internet, you should find out more by visiting this website.

If you prefer a more humorous approach to learning, Cracked did a great piece on SOPA, too.

You would think with all the other crap that the government could spend its time doing (oh, you know, fixing the economy, continuing to reform health care, polishing up the Bill of Rights by actually standing on the side of people's rights, finishing up wars that we've started, finding solutions or implementing measures to slow global warming, revising the food system, getting new and equally inefficient legislators elected, working to actually improve education in our country...surely they have enough on their plate?  Seems like a hell of a to-do list to me) they would be too busy to mess up something that already works just fine, like the internet.

Guess I was wrong.

Random Babbling Without a Camera

Not too sure what to write, so I thought I’d write about one of the meals I cooked a while ago. It showed a few things which I think are important to making a dish: how to think up a dish that fits the event; how a chefy trick can save a recipe; and give you an idea about how one can go about making a simple change to a dish.

All of this began months ago when I got invited to a birthday party a couple days before the event. I wasn’t able to find out much about the likes and dislikes of the birthday girl except that she enjoys drinking shots and eating sweets. So in thinking up which dish I should pick, I focused on the three things I knew: it’s a party, she likes drinks, and she likes sweet things. One dish I thought might work was this avocado and mango salad with a roasted garlic & jalapeno dressing. It worked somewhat with the party and sweet themes, and I thought I could add some tequila as well to get the third.

When I went to the market, I ran into a couple common problems. I checked the avocados and they were hard as rocks. I looked at the mangos, none of them looked good. Unperturbed, I knew I could quickly ripen the main component of the dish, the avocados, by placing them in a brown paper bag with a couple bananas the couple days before the party (sometimes a little chefy knowledge can come in handy). I was fine there, but I needed a replacement for the mangos because I knew nothing I could do would get them to ripen in time.

Many of you have probably run into a similar problem at one point or another and during these situations it’s best to think about what an ingredient brings to a dish. For instance, say you’re missing a lemon to a braised chicken thigh dish. Well, what’s the lemon there for? It’s probably to cut the fattiness of the chicken thigh to lighten the dish by bringing in an acidic, high note. So why not try another acidic fruit such as an orange or a lime? Or you could go a little out and try making citrus marinated red onions to add that high note with Mexican flare. What about fennel? There are lots of ways to bring a high note to a dish.

Heck, you could swing the other way entirely and try to bring out the savory aspects of the chicken dish with cinnamon or tomatoes. There are lots of ways to save or change a dish when you know a little bit about different ingredients. Yes, you will make some horrible dishes at times, but that’s part of the learning process. In my case, I chose to heighten the sweetness of the dish and added peaches. With my avocados, peaches, tequila, and a few other ingredients in hand, I went home.

Jump forward a couple days, my avocados are ripe and it’s time to cook. However, while preparing my ingredients, I thought, let’s make this fit the party atmosphere more and change this from a salad to a guacamole dip. Well, how do I do that? Simple. Cut up the ingredients into small chunks instead of wedges and make more dressing to give the dish a creamier texture. These quick and easy changes can completely change a dish.

On the other hand, sometimes what seems like a good idea ends up pretty bad. Before putting the tequila into the dish, I taste tested a small bit with tequila. Yeah, didn’t taste good at all. I really wanted to use it, but not at the cost of the dish. This is an important lesion. Make sure you taste test when you’re cooking. You can’t always do this, but when you can, give it a taste. You can easily avoid some awful combinations that way.

In the end the dish came out alright. I can still see some room for improvements, but people enjoyed it.