Tomato

The first time I had this was in a Persian restaurant in Washington DC. A salad of parsley. It’s a bit of a pain to make, especially since I don’t like parsley stems, but foolproof.

1 1/2 cups bulgar wheat (medium or coarse)
2 big bunches of parsley
1 small red onion
2 large tomatoes
1 cup lemon juice (4-5 lemons)
1/2 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons fresh or dried mint
Salt and pepper to taste

Start proofing the bulgar wheat. There are many ways to do this. I’ve settled on putting it into a mesh strainer fitted into a saucepan—shown above—and running hot water over it to wet the grains until the water reaches the top. I sit it by the sink and about 45 minutes later it’s all puffed up and you can just pick the strainer up and let the water run out.

While this is going on, get out a large bowl, the biggest one you have. Finely dice the tomatoes and put them in your bowl and sprinkle with salt. Set aside.

In a 2 cup measuring cup, add a half cup of olive oil and stir in the mint; finely minced if using fresh. Squeeze the lemons and add to the olive oil.

Now finely dice the red onion and add it to the olive oil and lemon juice mixture.

Now the parsley. I don’t like stems so I painstakingly pluck the leaves and then coarsely chop them. But you can do this however you want.

Once the bulgur is drained and ready, add everything to the bowl with the tomatoes. Add freshly ground pepper to taste or not.

Watch it disappear in less time than it took to make.

For this four+ person version, you’ll need:
1 pound conchiglie pasta
1/3 cup of mayonnaise
1/4 cup of white wine or rice wine vinegar
1/2 cup of olive oil
1 to 4 or more cloves of garlic put through garlic press
1 small tomato diced small
8 or 10 Kalamata olives diced small
1/2 a small red onion diced small
1/2 small cucumber seeded and medium diced
1/2 cup or more of parsley chopped
3 ounces or more of crumbled feta
Fresh cracked pepper
Sea salt flakes

Cooking equipment I used:
6 quart stock/pasta pot

Get the pasta water going.

Then get a big bowl, big enough to hold all the pasta and the rest of the stuff. I have three white ceramic mixing bowls that nest together, I use the largest one.

In a two cup Pyrex measuring cup, add the mayonnaise. Slowly add the vinegar while stirring, then slowly add the olive oil while stirring. Run as many cloves of garlic as you like through the garlic press (I used four big ones) and add to the mixture. Add pepper to taste. Set aside.

Cut the tomato into a small dice. Put them in the bowl and sprinkle with sea salt flakes. Cut the olives into a small dice and add this to the mayonnaise mixture. Next cut the red onion into a small dice and add this to the mayonnaise mixture. Skin the cucumber and cut it in half; with a spoon, remove the seeds, then slice into strips and cut into a medium dice. Put these in the bowl around the tomatoes. Finely chop the parsley and add it to the bowl.

When your pasta is done, run it under cold water to cool it and stir to get water out. Once it’s cooled, add it to the bowl and mix together. Then add the mayonnaise mixture and combine, and then add the feta and mix until just combined.

Tag: Tomato

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