lebanese tabbouli goes gluten free!

it is spring time, and i begin to crave tabbouli...the infamous lebanese salad traditionally made with a small amount of bulgar wheat (burghul in arabic), finely minced parsley, mint, green onions, and tomatoes. this is how my mother, grandmother and beyond made this classic lebanese salad. and this is how the recipe in alice's kitchen: traditional lebanese cooking is written.

this is great and delicious, except that starting this past march, it was recommended by my naturopathic doctor that i be GLUTEN FREE or "GF" as many packages are now marked for this rising international trend (my lebanese friend samar saw GF pastries at the paris airport!).

so if you know arabic food, lebanese food, and alice's kitchen, you know that bread and wheat are big parts of the cuisine. so what is a lebanese cookbook author to do, who loves to cook our food TRADITIONALLY? especially right now, when i'm craving tabbouli with the mint and parsley in my garden just in their prime. 

QUINOA (pronounced keen-wa) is the answer! i steamed up some quinoa, a non-gluten "grain", and let it cool. following the recipe in alice's kitchen on page 58, i merely used the cooked quinoa instead of bulgar. no need to soak it, just place a small amount (1/3 cup) in the bowl, season with salt and cayenne pepper. add fresh squeezed lemon juice, olive oil, and set aside to marinate while chopping tomatoes, onions, parsley, and spearmint.

at this time of year in portland since the tomato plants in my garden have barely been planted in the ground, i'm using organic canned chopped tomatoes (without the juice, which i sip and savor) instead of fresh tomatoes that are not yet in season locally. my foodie friend samar tells me that cooked tomatoes have more lycopene, so all the better! plus they've been picked and canned at the peak of the season, so they're sweet!

here's the lovely and fantastic result—lebanese tabbouli with quinoa—served in romaine lettuce "boats" that are picked up and eaten like a taco, and i'm ecstatic about it, since i LOVE tabbouli, and couldn't imagine it without bulgar.

just now in researching quinoa online, i learned on wikipedia that it is over 4000 years old. and that it can be sprouted within a few hours! so my next experiment with the next batch of tabbouli will be with sprouted quinoa instead of cooked! and i may find some red quinoa to try as well. stay tuned for the results. in the meantime, make a bowl of lebanese tabbouli with quinoa and delight in the flavor and healthful results. be sure to let your "gluten free" friends in on the secret.

i'm off to sprout some quinoa right now! this spring i've been sprouting lentils, sunflower and alfalfa seeds, and mung beans to add to my salads, adding protein and a real feeling of eating LIVE foods...and can't wait to try the quinoa! let me know how your results turn out! and happy cooking and sprouting! 

fattoush—the "other" favorite authentic lebanese salad

although tabbouli is probably my favorite lebanese salad and is so popular and well known, not to mention super nutritious, fattoush is a close second. mama said this arabic word comes from the arabic word "fatte" meaning "broken up" or "pieces", which in this salad refers to the broken pieces of arabic bread that are crisped and added to the salad just before tossing.

it had been too long since i made fattoush, so i made it for a small dinner party recently and it was so fabulous that i keep making it. it's much easier to make than tabbouli, which i often crave at this spring time of year, when the parsley and mint in my garden are thriving in oregon rain. both salads include these two herbs along with green onions and a dressing of fresh squeezed lemons and olive oil. no garlic! recipes for both are in alice's kitchen: traditional lebanese cooking, of course!

the ingredients for alice's fattoush are: romaine lettuce, cucumbers, green onion, parsley, spearmint, sumac (optional), purslane (when it's available in the summer garden...it just shows up as a weed! and known by latinos as verdolaga), tomatoes, and toasted arabic bread.

the reddish-brown sprinkling on the bread is ground sumac berries that give the fattoush a zesty tart flavor. often used instead of lemon juice, sumac is typically used in fattoush especially to marinate onions, removing the sharp edge of raw onion.

using leftover, dry bread in pieces is the arabic version of adding croutons to a salad. you can see i've used a very flat bread instead of thicker pita bread, which would be fine, but i prefer the thinner bread: khoobz markouk or an armenian lavosh. the bread is toasted lightly to crisp it up and is added to the salad just before dressing and tossing, as it will get soggy if it sits too long, so timing is everything in this recipe. sorry the photo is fuzzy! i was in a big hurry to take blog photos as my little dinner party was just about to begin. thanks to my dear friend, pam, who took a couple of photos and made the fantastic deviled eggs, here's the table without the main entreé of lebanese broiled chicken over rice:

marinated broiled chicken served over brown rice, topped with sauteéd nuts—a mixture of slivered almonds, pine nuts, and pistachio nuts—then sprinkled with cinnamon, and served with a dish of homemade lebanese aioli (garlic mayonnaise—toum ou zeit) is a classic lebanese favorite from alice's kitchen.

the salad before adding the broken arabic bread using canned organic diced tomatoes...

...instead of out-of-season tomatoes trucked north from south of the border is a new discovery that has been surprisingly delicious and is more sustainable. what convinced me most about using canned organic tomatoes is that they are picked when they're sun-vine-ripened, so they're very sweet and tasty. 

this dinner included the colorful beet salad and hommus featured in a recent blog post. watch for an upcoming blog enty about making the garlic mayonnaise, which is divine and a little tricky, but sooooo worth it!

a follow up note about my fava beans planted in february: they're blooming beautifully! will add a photo soon! 

happy cooking and sahtein!

my lebanese cooking classes featured in the blogosphere!

over the past few years, i have been teaching lebanese cooking classes in people's homes, featuring recipes, of course, from my book, alice's kitchen: traditional lebanese cooking.

i just discovered that a recent cooking class/dinner party i taught at my friend and naturopath elaine's house was blogged on by her husband, david, whom i met that evening. we had an ambitious menu, so i requested the guests/class refrain for a while from drinking alcohol, since we had a lot to do if we wanted to eat before midnight! when you see the menu, you'll understand!

appetizers

        baba ghannouj

mhammara (red pepper & walnut dip)

ful mdammas (fava beans with garlic)

raw cut veggies (persian cucumbers, carrot sticks, romaine lettuce, and such)

olives

pita bread

feta cheese

pistachio nuts, cashews, jordan almonds

entreés

lebanese omelette (vegetarian—either as entreé or appetizer)

barbequed chicken with homemade garlic mayonnaise

sheikh al mihshi (japanese eggplant stuffed with lamb) served over lebanese style rice, garnished with  sauteéd nuts

salads

tabbouli

lebanese beet salad

dessert

fresh seasonal fruits and berries

knafe bi jibn (lebanese cheese pastry) with simple syrup (attar)

beverages

lebanese rose syrup 

jallab (sweet date beverage) with pine nuts

lebanese beer and wine


quite an effort and quite a feast! twelve guests/cooks were invited—not all were in the kitchen! some of the men played music while mostly women and one brave man were the students/cooks, with david documenting the event with his camera! it was a great collaborative effort and still we didn't eat until after 9 p.m. (early for middle easterners!) perhaps because of the elaborate menu and challenges with using the convection oven—elaine had barely used hers—it was new, and my total cooking experience is on my traditional vintage gas stove!

it was an enjoyable and memorable night! here's one of david's photos. be sure to read his blog to see more and to hear his perspective. thanks, david!

alice's kitchen returns to LA for 100th anniversary of...

the church founded by my great uncle, Fr. Gerasimos Sawaya, of Douma, Lebanon, St. Anne's Melkite (Byzantine rite) Greek Catholic Church. copies of alice's kitchen were given in honor of my mother, Alice, and the Sawaya family to guests attending a banquet to celebrate this event. people who knew mama, and others were thrilled to receive copies of the book, which along with so many recipes, includes history, historical photos, and memoir. Fr. Sawaya looks a lot like my father, Elias, quite handsome, indeed.

this summer i was craving tabbouli salad made from my homegrown tomatoes, parsley, mint and green onions (recipe of course from alice's kitchen!). it is served in little romaine "boats" and picked up to eat like a taco! not much bulgar in it compared to what is often called tabbouli in the west. the winter version of tabbouli, called safsouf, has much more bulgar since greens are not as abundant as in the summertime.

i am delighted to be posting on this new blog, with color photos showing what many of our traditional lebanese dishes look like in full beautiful color.

things are winding down in the garden, so i will have more time to post. and i will include some images of the abundant summer harvest, like this one.