TURKISH BULGAR WHEAT SALAD I made this dish as part of my ‘Ready steady cook

???????? TURKISH BULGAR WHEAT SALAD ????????

I made this dish as part of my ‘Ready steady cook challenge’ in partnership with justfootprintschester , having been provided with a bag of ingredients and the freedom to make whatever popped into my mad little mind. I have used bulgar wheat before, but almost exclusively from supermarkets or Wholefoods stores, prepackaged. You can get bulgar wheat of varying ‘fineness’, the finer the bulgar the closer to a kind of couscous it is and you can simply soak it in hot water for half an hour to cook. The bulgar wheat from Just Footprints was very different to any I have had before, it was much less processed and ‘rougher’, it felt almost whole grain. It’s probably the nicest bulgar wheat I’ve cooked with. This meant that it had a lovely chew and texture to it, and that it’s not quite suitable for just soaking to cook. I went full on terrible Brit and boiled it for about 7 minutes in salted water, covered and left for a further ten minutes to finish cooking, and later removing any excess water that hadn’t been soaked up by the bulgar wheat.

My cooking with bulgar wheat preamble complete; here is how I made the Turkish bulgar wheat salad (how many times can I type bulgar wheat in one post guys?*).

???? Pre cook your bulgar wheat and allow to cool.
???? In a frying pan add, 2tbsp oil, a handful of sun-dried tomatoes (re-hydrated with warm water and finely chopped), 2 tbsp tomato paste and a generous pinch of chilli flakes – this can be Turkish Aleppo chilli flakes for the more authentic flavour, a chilli paste or chilli powder if that’s what’s available.
???? cook out the chilli and tomato for a few minutes, then add the bulgar wheat to the pan, stirring well to combine. The bulgar wheat will turn red and soak up those flavours. Leave to cool completely.
???? evenly chop spring onion, cucumber, dried apricot and fresh parsley leaves. Stir through the bulgar wheat and season with salt, lemon juice and agave syrup. (If you have pomegranate molasses this is what is normally used in this dish, so use this instead of lemon and agave.)

*13. The answer is 13 times.