This recipe is for a simple yet festive bulgur dish, done in collaboration with Gal Mamalya from the excellent blog “Ptitim”.
With only a few simple vegetables, bulgur and almonds, some real magic happens in the pot! Our happy plushies were also there to help, but they ended up being in the way. So let’s begin!
What do you need to do?
For a big pot that will feed around 4 people you’ll need:
- ⅓ Cup Olive Oil
- 1 Large Onion
- 1 Large Carrot
- 1 Small Eggplant
- 4 Cloves of Garlic
- 2-3 Ripe Tomatoes
- 1 Tbsp Tomato Paste
- 1 Cup Cooked Chickpea
- 1 Cup Coarse Bulgur
- 2 Cups Water
Spices:
- 1 tspn Cumin
- 1 tspn Cinnamon
- 1 tspn Salt
To Serve:
- A handful of parsley
- A handful of sliced almonds, toasted
Roll up your sleeves
This recipe is made of steps, and they're all easy to follow and simple. You’ll only have to be working for about 20 minutes before the magic will start happening on its own in the pot. You just need to make sure you follow through each of the steps before moving on to the next one.
You start by frying some onion
You slice the onions on the thick side, and fry them in the olive oil until golden and sweetish with a wonderful smell.
If you rush through or skip this step, you’ll miss out on the true magic of this recipe, so please don’t! It only takes about 15 minutes but your intuition is probably better than a timer so bear with it until the onion is just right.
In the meantime, you should slice and dice some vegetables
Dice the carrot and the eggplant to approx. 2cm cubes and slice the garlic. Add to the onion and let them fry for about 10 minutes, maybe a little longer. Stir them so they don’t burn!
Spice it up
Why now? Because in a minute water will be involved and these spices need oil to open up and give away their full potential. So add the salt, the cumin and the cinnamon and don’t dare skip any of them! Mix everything up nicely, the smell in the room will be heavenly.
Add the rest
You can use a grater to extract only the nice tomato meat, leave the peel out. Add the tomatoes and the tomato paste in the pot and stir them with everything else for a minute or two. Add the chickpeas and the bulgur and then 2 cups of tap water. Stir nicely until everything is incorporated. Things aren’t very exciting yet, but they will be soon!
Now you just have to bring it to a boil, close the lid and lower the flame. Leave the pot alone for about 20 minutes. After that when you open the lid again, you’ll be met with a beautiful, naturally sweet dish. Magic!
Serve!
To serve, top the dish with the parsley and the almonds and let the compliments of everyone in the room start pouring in. Bon Appetit!
