Winter Tabouleh w/ Quinoa, Pomegranate & Radicchio
/Begin by finely chopping all your ingredients:
Cucumber — You want to have really small cucumber cubes in this salad, try using this technique: This guy scoops the seeds out — that’s not necessary. But you want a very small dice.
Tomatoes — You DEFS want to get the seeds out of this. Begin by cutting a large tomato in half, scoop out all the guts and seeds and then slice the tomato meat into strips, and dice those strips. You want the tomatoes to be as dry as possible or you’ll end up with a slimy salad: no bueno.
Red Onion/Shallot — Get a really nice small dice on this.
Parsley (coriander + mint — optional) chop up LOADS of parsley very finely.
These are the basic tabouleh veg ingredients, now we’re going to add our WINTERY elements:
Pomegranate — Always buy 2 pomegranates at a time; there’s nothing worse than opening a pomegranate and seeing all the seeds not looking their best and brightest. Therefore its good to have a back-up pomegranate. Use LOADS of seeds for this salad, don’t just use it as a garnish.
Radicchio — roughly chop the radicchio. You can also use purple endives for this. The bitterness and the crunch will be a fantastic compliment to all the citrus and the tangy pomegranate seeds.
Toasted pine nuts — optional but why not go all out?
The GRAINS:
The traditional grain for a tabouleh salad is bulgur wheat. It’s healthy and easy to cook— like couscous which is also a decent addition to tabouleh. But I always like to add extra protein wherever possible and quinoa is perfect for this. Red, black or white, cook your quinoa — season it generously with salt and pepper and allow to cool off entirely.
Add all your ingredients into a large bowl, and pour in your totally cooled off grains. Drizzle with some olive oil and squeeze over the juice of 1-2 juicy lemons or limes. Season with more salt and pepper and toss well.