When I wrote my first book, over 30 years ago (in fact this October will mark the 30th anniversary of Lebanese Cuisine) there were many dishes that I wanted to explain properly to readers who were not familiar with the cuisine, how they needed to be prepared and what they should look like, not to mention how they should taste. And one of the dishes that was most misunderstood was tabbüleh. Most recipes had too much grain, others had replaced the burghul with couscous and hardly anyone wrote of the importance not only of using the herbs as an ingredient, but also how important it was to chop them properly. Most chefs first chop the herbs coarsely then, with a see saw action, bring the knife up and down over them until they are practically pulverised. This may succeed in chopping them very fine but it also bruises them which means they will oxidise almost as soon as the dressing is added, resulting in a mushy tangle of herbs rather than the crisp slivers illustrated in the picture above.
But before actually chopping the herbs, you need to wash and dry them. Long ago, my mother used to first chop then wash, which when I was young I didn’t really think much about but when I started learning more about food after moving to Europe, I realised it was the worst thing she could do. She got rid of much of the goodness in the herbs and made them mushy even if she had initially chopped them the right way. Fortunately, she saw my point when I told her she should do it the other way round. So now she and I wash the herbs first, then spin them dry before spreading on clean kitchen towels, the pasley still on the stalk but the mint, only leaves, to let them dry completely.
When the herbs are dry, the parsley is bunched up as in the picture below — keep the bunches fairly small so that you can cup your hand over the whole lot in order to start a shaving rather than a chopping action. This way, you can achieve perfectly thin, crisp slivers (what is called chiffonade in professional terms).
Here is a short clip to show you what the herbs need to look like. I think my mother achieves even thinner slivers!
As for the other ingredients, the onion needs to be chopped small. I use spring onions but most cooks in Lebanon use salad onions which they rub with salt and spices after chopping to soften them. I don’t because I want all my ingredients to remain crisp. This also goes for the tomatoes. You need a very sharp or a serrated knife to dice them into small cubes without crushing them. And finally, use a very small amount of grain or burghul (or bulgur wheat as it is known in the US) unlike what most recipes tell you. I like to mix the salad ingredients before dressing it so as to blend them well (larger pic below) before seasoning with lemon juice, extra virgin olive oil (the best you have) and a little each of ground cinnamon, allspice, 7-spice mixture and black pepper. My mother who likes chilli adds a little cayenne pepper and sometimes she replaces the lemon juice with verjuice or uses a mix of both.
And here is a little pilot shot by Graham Judd with me preparing tabbüleh. We did it in the kitchen of Aline restaurant in London when we were working on a proposal for a TV series based on my book Feast, The Food of the Islamic World.
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