Arabic Inspired Mezze Meal

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I absolutely love travelling and have created numerous boards on Pinterest of my dream destinations as well as the food of these countries.

As I mention in the video, two of the countries I have a deep desire to visit are Morocco and Turkey. I can already visualize visiting the markets bursting with mountains of spices, dates, and various other beautiful and interesting ornaments. I can hear the music, smell the incense, and picture the electric blue, and greenish turquoise, coloured doors of the riads (traditional houses) and villas. Morocco is known for its vivid and colorful designs, and interesting architecture.

I do admit to having a colourful and vivid imagination, and an interest in architecture, so I do believe that Morocco will be a good fit! And as for Turkey, I believe that the Turks enjoy their food, so I foresee no major problems there. I just have one concern…The Turkish word for breakfast, kahvaltı, means “before coffee.” Whaaat? No coffee before breakfast?!
Oh well, I’ll just have to get around that one by indulging in a very, very early Turkish breakfast!

I’ve digressed…One of the dishes I LOVE making for guests is Tabbouleh. It’s a great mezzo style meal, but also goes well served as a side salad with a main meal.

This Tabbouleh recipe is a Middle Eastern inspired dish.

Ingredients:
One cup of bulgur wheat, but I used pearled wheat, instead. (To cook this required one cup of pearled wheat to four cups of water.)
A fresh punnet of parsley
Juice of one lemon
Olive oil
Sachet of pitted olives (about 200 grams)
One large purple onion (peeled and cut in to four)
300 grams Sundried tomatoes.
Clove of garlic
Salt and pepper to taste

Method:
Rinse the pearled wheat with cold water and place in a pot with the water and bring to the boil, once it has reached the boil, turn the heat down, cover, and simmer gently for about 40 minutes- to an hour until tender. Drain
Let the wheat cool down in a bowl.
In a separate bowl, place your fresh parsley, purple onion, sundried tomatoes, pitted olives, teaspoon of cinnamon, garlic, 4 tablespoons olive oil, salt, pepper, and lemon juice. (I love olives so, in addition, I used two teaspoons of olive tapenade)
Mix all together
Place the contents of the bowl into a food processor.
Blend together.
Add to the cooled down pearled wheat. Mix and serve cold.

This dish goes really well with crispy, warm flatbread, cheeses, and wine, etc. The flatbread also goes really well with roasted beetroot hummus, so I’d like to suggest that you make both of these dishes when next you are entertaining and want to serve something out of the ordinary.

Ingredients:
5 large beetroot
1 can of chick peas (400 grams)
2 large chili peppers
3 whole cloves of fresh garlic
2 tablespoons of butternut
1 punnet fresh coriander
Salt and pepper to taste
Olive oil to drizzle
Flat bread for serving. (I bought mine from the store, alternatively, make my spelt flat bread I made on this post)

Method
Wash the beetroot, and cut off both ends of each beetroot.
Cut each beetroot into four pieces.
Place the cut up beetroot, the onion, the garlic, and the two chili peppers, on a baking tray, and drizzle with olive oil.
Place in the oven at 180 degrees until fully cooked.

 

Once the ingredients have cooled down, place them into a food processor along with all the other ingredients. Mix together for four minutes (or until smoothly blended)

Place in a bowl, and serve when cooled down.

Watch the video below for the full recipe and tutorial on how to make the Tabbouleh.

YouTube video

Beetroot Hummus Byrd and Bean

Roasted Beetroot Hummus byrd and bean

Roasted Beetroot Hummus byrd and bean