Heidi at 101cookbooks recently made this beautiful spring tabbouleh, which Matt and I copied the other night. We changed it up a little — Heidi had used mostly chives instead of the traditional parsley, but I love parsley, so I decided to use it instead. Also, we have this crazy jungle of mint growing outside our kitchen window, and it needs to be tamed a bit, so we we chopped up some of that to add to the mix as well. We also replaced the walnuts with pine nuts.

I had never tried bulgur before, but I keep thinking I should branch out and try different whole grains, so here’s a first step in that direction. This was a wonderful, quick, healthy but fulfilling one dish meal — the perfect thing when we got home from the gym Tuesday night. And so pretty, too!

Spring Tabbouleh

adapted from Heidi Swanson

1 cup fine bulgur
1 bunch of asparagus, cut in 1″ pieces

1 garlic clove, crushed with a couple pinches of salt
1 lemon
1/3 c extra virgin olive oil

1/2 bunch parsley, finely chopped
handful of mint, finely chopped
handful of chives, finely chopped

1 c of pine nuts, toasted
2 hardboiled eggs, chopped

Boil some water (~4 c or so). Put the bulgur in a medium bowl and pour water up to the top of the grains. Let sit until just tender (Heidi says 15 minutes, but it took a little longer before it was tender enough for my taste).

Return the water to the stove, salt it, add the asparagus, and blanch for about a minute, just enough to take the edge off their bite. Or, do what I did, and put the asparagus in a microwave safe dish, pour the water over them, cover them, and microwave for about a minute.

Once the bulgur is done, press out any remaining water and add the asparagus to the bulgur.

Meanwhile, whisk together the garlic, lemon juice, and olive oil. Taste the dressing, and season more as necessary.

Add the herbs, half the pine nuts, and a generous splash of dressing. Toss, add more dressing as needed, and adjust the seasoning. (I ended up using not quite all the dressing, and adding a bit more olive oil.) Garnish with remaining nuts and chopped egg.