Hummus and Taboulleh Salad

For vegetarians, Mediterranean food is truly a delight. In my travels across the world, especially around UK and Europe, Good vegetarian food is hard to find, especially if one doesn’t want potatoes. Although I am not a vegetarian, I don’t particularly enjoy seafood and on the contrary, am an extremely happy vegetarian. Very rarely do I complain about being served vegetarian food and quite often, I end up ordering a vegetarian dish for myself. It was during my stay in the UK that I discovered my obsession and love for ‘the mezze food world’ and oh! What a wonderful world it is! A lot of meals outside would end up in Edgware road (the famous place for all mezze food), and even when eating at home, the many varieties of hummus and tahini would always be found in the fridge. Time being a constraint then, cooking from scratch would be difficult. But since the time I have been back, Hummus at home is an easy go. Quite often, if I am eating out, and if there is a mezze platter on the starter menu, I usually cannot resist ordering it.

It had been playing on my mind for a while to try hummus @261, knowing that it would be a wonderful meal or an accompaniment, but since Ak is not a Chickpeas person, I was skeptical. However, since it was the 2 of us for dinner for a couple of months, I decided to go ahead and experiment with Ak’s taste buds. And I was willing to bribe him a bit with a tempting supplement. The menu for the night was Lebanese bread, Hummus, Taboulleh salad and Kebabs as the bribe for Ak. This meant that even if he didn’t like anything, he would at least enjoy the kebabs for the meal. Initially I had planned to make minced meat kebabs at home, but with work at its peak, I decided to go with some readymade shammi-kebabs from the local butcher; they are as fresh as ever and Ak actually loved them, along with the salad.

The Tabouleh salad is a traditional Turkish salad that has a strong flavour of Parsley and is served cold. Derived from the Arabic word tabil, that means seasoning, the salad has a variety of most flavours that are easy to find and I personally love. The salad was surely a winner. I don’t know if the meal was a success, but it definitely got approval enough, for Ak to not mind it as a meal twice a month. I was only hoping for maybe once in 2 months! Sometimes- the desire to have the meal again I guess, is the success quotient.

For the Hummus;

150g chickpeas, soaked overnight in salt or canned chickpeas

Olive Oil

Salt

Paprika

2-3 Cloves of Garlic

Cumin powder (I use fresh cumin occasionally as well)

3 Tablespoons of Thick yoghurt (to make it less grainy)

Juice of half a Lemon

Boil the chickpeas or cook in a pressure cooker after having being soaked overnight.

Mix in a mixer along with the remaining ingredients and about 4 tablespoons of water until you get a smooth paste. Add olive oil if the mixture is too thick. Transfer to a bowl, add some olive oil in the centre and garnish with olives/ parsley.

Optional- Could be made with red peppers/olives as well.

Tabouleh salad

1 cucumber, finely chopped

1 red onion, finely chopped

2 green onions, finely chopped

1 tomato (large), finely chopped

Half/3-4^th cups parsley, finely chopped

Half Cup Rocket, finely chopped (traditionally mint is preferred, but I had rocket available, so used that instead)

3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

Olive oil

Lemon juice                                                      

Salt and Pepper

Mix all ingredients in a bowl and serve chilled.