Here There and Everywhere

Bulgur/Burgul and Garbonzo Beans/Hummos – Great Cold Weather Fare

While we were staying with our son and his wife, we had a lot of fun cooking. EnviroGirl shared a great grain recipe, with like seven different grains. It reminded me that I had wanted to find a recipe for the wonderful dish we ate at Naranj, in Damascus so I Googled, and found a recipe that sounded a lot like it – and besides that, it looks really simple.

There are a lot of ingredients I cannot find in Kuwait, but burgul is something easily found. I gave it a try, and AdventureMan and I agreed, it is a total keeper. Looks pretty good, hmmm?

When we sat down to dinner, AdventureMan asked what it was called.

“Burgul and garbanzo beans,” I replied.

“What was it called in Damascus?” he asked.

“Burgul Wa Hummos” I replied, and we both laughed, because it is exactly the same name, except maybe it was called “Hummos wa Burgul,” I might have switched it. Same thing, same thing.

Of course, I changed the original recipe a little. The one we had in Damascus was sinfully butter-y.

Here is the original recipe:

Bulgur and Garbanzo Bean Pilaf

Method :
• Combine onion and butter in deep wide skillet. Cook, stirring, over mediun-low heat until onion is golden, about 10 minutes. Stir in bulgur, garbanzo beans, apricots and cinnamon stick.
• Add broth and bring to boil. Stir once. Cover and cook over low heat until broth is absorbed. about 20 minutes. Let stand. covered, 10 minutes.
• Meanwhile, toast almonds in small dry skillet, stirring, over low heat, about 3 minutes. Remove cinnamon stick from pilaf. Sprinkle almonds over pilaf and serve.
• Makes 4 servings.

I doubled the butter. I added five cloves of finely chopped garlic, which I sauteed until soft. Instead of apricots or raisins, I used those dried pomegranate seeds you find in the Mubarakiyya market – can someone tell me what they are called? So tart, so beautiful, so delicious! It just made this dish.

(Wiki says: Wild pomegranate seeds are sometimes used as a spice known as anardana (which literally means pomegranate (anar) seeds (dana) in Persian)

We used about double the toasted almonds.

This was my very first time ever for toasting almonds. It took me a little longer than three minutes; maybe my low heat is too low, but it was fun, and the toasted almonds make a big difference in the final taste. I had so much fun toasting the almonds that afterwards, I also toasted sesame seeds, just to see if I could (and I could! 🙂 )

I have to tell you, this dish is delicious! We are trying to eat less meat, eat lower on the food chain, and this dish will help us to do that. We figured, we actually could add a little meat – some leftover chunks of chicken, some sausage, or even some shrimp – and it would still be really really good, and keep meat intake minimal.

Does anyone eat burgul for breakfast? It seems to me it would be good with a little brown sugar and cinnamon and pecans, or blueberries?

December 19, 2008 - Posted by intlxpatr | Uncategorized