Anissa Helou’s green bulgur wheat ‘risotto’ (AKA mafrükeh ). Photograph: Phoebe Pearson/The Guardian. Food styling: Hanna Miller. Prop styling: Lucy Turnbull. Food styling assistant: Thea Hudson View image in fullscreen Anissa Helou’s green bulgur wheat ‘risotto’ (AKA mafrükeh ). Photograph: Phoebe Pearson/The Guardian. Food styling: Hanna Miller. Prop styling: Lucy Turnbull. Food styling assistant: Thea Hudson Food Bulgur ‘risotto’ and tahini rice pudding: Anissa Helou’s Lebanese recipes Grains are such a staple of Lebanese cooking that you could devote an entire book to them. Here are two shining examples: a tabbüleh-style southern dish and a Sunni speciality for dessert
Prefer the Guardian on Google I f bread is the main staple of Lebanese cooking, grains and legumes are next, and there is hardly a meal without one or the other. Bulgur wheat is the preferred grain, especially for rural communities of all confessions; in the old days, they grew their own wheat to make it, harvesting, threshing and parboiling the wheat before drying it in the sun and sending it to the local mill to be ground into fine and coarse grades to last the household until the next harvest. In fact, given the sheer number of recipes across the country, I could have easily devoted a whole book to Lebanese recipes for grains alone.
An interesting dish from Deir Intar down south, where bulgur wheat is often cooked with greens and tomato sauce. It’s a dish I had never come across before, and the addition of spring onions and herbs makes for a fresher, more intriguing combination. It’s served like tabbüleh – a kind of cooked tabbüleh, as it were – and is traditionally scooped up with raw cabbage leaves or, when in season, fresh vine leaves.
Soak 30 min Prep 15 min Cook 20 min Serves 4-6
80ml extra-virgin olive oil 250g coarse bulgur wheat , soaked in cold water for 30 minutes 1 bunch spring onions (about 100g), trimmed and sliced fairly thinly 1 large bunch flat-leaf parsley (about 200g), washed, dried, the thick stalks discarded and the rest finely chopped ¾ bunch fresh mint (about 150g on the stalk), leaves picked, washed, dried and finely chopped 112g tomato paste , diluted in 750ml cold water Sea salt Fresh cabbage leaves , or vine leaves, to serve
Put the oil in a wide, medium-sized pot on a medium heat. Drain the bulgur wheat, add it to the hot oil and stir for a couple of minutes, to coat. Add the spring onions, parsley and mint, mix well, then add the diluted tomato paste and season with salt to taste. Cover the pan and leave to bubble for 10 to 15 minutes, until the bulgur has absorbed all the liquid and is cooked. Take off the heat, wrap the lid in a clean tea towel, then put it back on top of the pot and leave to rest and cool.
Serve at room temperature with either cabbage leaves or, when they’re in season, vine leaves.
View image in fullscreen Anissa Helou’s müffata’a , AKA tahini rice pudding. This unique take on rice pudding is a Sunni specialty from Beirut. I never knew about this dish when I lived in the city, and discovered it only a few years ago while researching my book Feast , when my friend Ziad Ghorly took me to al-Makari, the most famous müffata’a maker in the city. Mr Makari very kindly gave me his recipe.
Soak 30 min Prep 5 min Cook 2 hr Serves 8-10
1 tbsp ground turmeric 250g short-grain white rice , rinsed under cold water, then soaked for 30 minutes 250g tahini 500g baker’s or superfine sugar 75g pine nuts , Mediterranean, ide…