Delicious Tabouleh made with locally grown herbs.

I picked up most of these ingredients from the farmer's market the other day, but there's no reason that you can't make this dish using things from your local supermarket.  Everything tastes better fresh of course, but we don't always have the luxury of locally made produce available to us - and even then, a lot of things very often aren't in season.  In this case though, I got pretty lucky.

A Bowlful of Delicious Tabouleh - Courtesy of godalo.com

So, the ingredients are as such
2 big bunches of parsley.  The biggest you can find.
1 cup Bulgar wheat.  You can find this in the grains section of your local store, probably next to the goya or organic merchandise.
2 carrots
1 bunch green onions
1 good sized tomato
2 lemons
Good quality extra virgin olive oil (don't skimp)

Allright, so now here's the deal.  First, make the bulgar wheat.  Boil up about 1.5 cups of water.  Once boiling, add in the 1 cup of bulgar wheat.  You can always add more, but this will allow the bulgar to be a bit dry and conducive to soaking up excess moisture from the salad, this is a good thing.  After you add the wheat, stir it into the water, take it off the heat, and cover for 20 minutes.

Now.  Chop up both bunches of parsley, stems and all.  Yes, you use the stems.  The secret to great Tabouli is chopping the parsley nice and fine, as finely as possible.  No, don't do anything stupid like using a food processor or blender as this will give you sludge.

Place both bunches of parsley in the bowl.  Mix.
Next, chop up the bunch of green onions.. be sure to chop off the bottom 3-4mm to get rid of the end, other than that, the whole thing goes into the bowl, nicely chopped.  Mix.

Next, grate the carrot.  I use a microplane zester which basically shreds the stuff to a wonderful consistency.  You could use something larger, but I reccomend using the zester.  Break this up all through the salad, and mix.

Next, chop the tomato up nicely and mix in.

Now, taking a fork, fluff the bulgar wheat from the pot into the salad.  Mix well.

It's important to mix everything well at each step in order to ensure that the salad has a homogeneous texture and taste and doesn't have too much in the way of chunks of any one ingredient.

Now, add salt and pepper to taste.  I'd estimate around 1/4 - 1/2 tbs of salt and lots of fresh black pepper.
Next, add in the juice of two lemons.
Mix.
Now, lastly, add in two tablespoons of Extra Virgin Olive Oil.
Mix.

You're done!  This will get better if you let it sit for around 20 minutes, or at can be eaten as is.  Sealed up, it will last about 5 days in the fridge.  It'll start getting dried out, but still tastes good.

This recipe makes enough to serve 6-8 people.

Enjoy!