Tabbouleh with quinoa

I am vetti (jobless) on a friday night with D snoring right next to me and Adya tucked in happily in between his thatha and paati (grand dad & mom). Friday’s Adya sleeps with his thatha & paati and so no prizes for guessing what his favourite day of the week is :D. I have been a Netflix binge mode for months now and I have decided to give it a good long break. Surprisingly, I realise how vetti I feel without netflix :D. Oh well, I do have mindless fb/ insta scrolling to give a stiff competition but my fingers start hurting with the scrolling and at some point I get out of the app (unlike Netflix).

So since I did not have anything else to do and with the whole house sleeping, I decided i’ll get going on the blog :). I recently bought an Airfryer oven. So I am hoping that will push me to keep the blog alive for some months (that is ofcourse till I lean towards Netflix again :D). This dish has got nothing to do with an Airfryer in case you are wondering. This is just me showing off in this post without actually showing off the Airfryer or an item made in the Airfryer :D.

I distinctly remember the first time I tasted tabbouleh (some 10 years back in a restaurant near my office – Caravan) and I did not like it. Over the years I have had this dish in multiple places and understood the dish and my palate’s well adjusted to the dish. I realise now that the main reason I did not like the dish was because of the parsley leaves. Uncooked parsley leaves have a sharp taste and are definitely only an acquired taste imho. Even now, I do not use a lot of uncooked parsley dish in any dish unless I decide to cut out the sharpness with some balsamic vinegar or some sweetener. However, whenever I buy a bunch of parsley leaves, I almost always make this dish. Very simple to make and very healthy and tasty too. Let me put a disclaimer that you may not like this dish the first time you have it (if you haven’t tasted tabbouleh before). Give it a few chances before you make up your mind on whether you like this dish or not is my humble request :).

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Tabbouleh with quinoa

Prep Time

10 mins

Cook Time

10 mins

 

Course: Main Course, Salad

Cuisine: Middle Eastern

Servings: 1 person

Ingredients

Salad

• 2 tbsp quinoa
• 1 no medium red capsicum
• 6 nos cherry tomatoes
• 1 small onion
• a big handful parsley leaves

Dressing

• 1 no lemon
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper

Instructions

1. Remove the stalks of the parsley leaves. Soak the leaves in a bowl of water for 5-10 mins to clean it. Just remove the leaves floating on top of the bowl and discard the water (you will notice the dirt/ sand settled in the bottom).

2. Let the parsley leaves dry on a kitchen towel/ tissue. If you are pressed for time, just dab the leaves dry using the kitchen towel/ tissue.

3. Meanwhile, cook the quinoa in 1/2c water with a pinch of salt. Once cooked, just drain the excess water, fluff out the quinoa and let it cool down.

4. Veggie prep – Chop 1 red capsicum into very small cubes. chop the cherry tomatoes into small pieces (remove the seeds). Chop 1 onion into very fine pieces. Chop the parsley leaves as well.

5. In a medium sized bowl, add the chopped veggies – capsicum, tomatoes, onion and parsley leaves.

6. Add the cooled down quinoa.

7. Squeeze the juice of 1 lemon into the bowl. Add 1/2t salt as well as 1/2t freshly ground pepper powder.

8. Mix everything together. Check & adjust for salt/ seasoning.

9. Serve immediately or chill for a few hours before serving (this corporates the flavours better).

Recipe Notes

1. The typical tabbouleh calls for bulgar instead of quinoa. You can use bulgar if you have it on hand. You can also use couscous instead or any other millet you may have at home. 
2. You can use 3T quinoa if you prefer to bulk up the serving without having to adjust the other ingredients. 
3. I prefer using a red capsicum in addition to the cherry tomatoes. 
4. If you don’t have cherry tomtoes, use 1 medium sized tomatoes (just remove the seeds from within). 
5. Some recipes uses way more parsley than what I have mentioned above. Parsley has as a very sharp taste and so I prefer this quantity and not more. 
6. You can add more salt & pepper as per your taste buds. Alternately for spice, you can even add 1 finely chopped green chilli. 
7. I love the sweetness the red capsicum & cherry tomatoes add to this and hence specifically use them in this dish. However, you can use green capsicum/ regular tomatoes if you do not have the red / cherry available.