Grains Three Ways: Bulgur

According to Wikipedia, bulgur is a cereal made from wheat. The grains of wheat have there bran partially removed and are parboiled (that is, partially cooked).

I have to say, bulgur was a surprise. I took it on for this project mostly because I happened to have some. I don't know where I got the idea, but I thought of bulgur as being rough and unpleasant, like some sort of allegedly-edible cleaning product. I don't happen to care for tabbouleh, the Middle-Eastern salad in which Americans are most likely to encounter bulgur, but my distaste has nothing to do with the texture of the grain itself.

However, when I cooked some bulgur up in my rice cooker with a little bit of oil, the result was light and fluffy. I've enjoyed putting some of the result in the bottom of a bowl with some meat and veggies on top of it. (Attention KFC: that's what a bowl should be.)

(I don't believe I've mentioned that I'm taking the directions for cooking my grains in my rice cooker from "The Ultimate Rice Cooker Cookbook, written by Beth Hensperger and Julie Kaufmann. The rice cooker can be an amazingly versatile tool, and this is an excellent guide to it's capabilities.)

My second dish was "Bulgur Pudding with Candied Ginger and Figs". Forget any idea you may have had this "pudding" means it will be smooth and silky: if you're like me, you can forget any idea that it's like anything else you've ever eaten. It's sweet, and fruity, and crunchy, and thick, and substantial, and savory. Amazing stuff. The recipe says it's 32g carbs per serving: if the serving size is more than a couple of tablespoons, I wonder a bit about that. If I make it again, I'll use a little bit less dried fruit and cut the figs into somewhat smaller pieces.

My third bulgur recipe was "http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/bulgur-gazpacho-recipe/index.html". Gazpacho is a tomato soup of Spanish origin and is served cold. I've wanted to try it both because it's really tasty and also to have something else I can eat during the hot and humid summers where I live. (For about four months, all I usually want to eat is bologna sandwiches and cold pizza. This year HAS to be different.)

Unfortunately, something went seriously wrong with my gazpacho: it's delicious -- fresh and tomato-ey and fully flavored -- but it's not soup. Essentially all the liquid in the recipe was absorbed by the bulgur as it cooked. I can think of a couple of things I might have done wrong, but doing those things differently would not have added enough moisture to call it a soup. But the comments on the recipe don't mention this issue at all. As the King of Siam might have said, it's a puzzlement. But it's a very tasty puzzlement.

Next grain in the project: brown rice. After that, I'll probably have several posts in a row about grains many people have never heard of.

(This is the third grain covered in my "Grains Three Ways" project, described here. I have previously written about http://wortheverypenny.blogspot.com/2011/02/grains-three-ways-pearled-barley.html and quinoa.)

Grains Three Ways: Quinoa

Quinoa is a grain (actually, according to Wikipedia, it is "grain-like") with an interesting history. It is very high in protein, and is apparently very close to a complete protein for humans, and appears to be low on the Glycemic Index for those who pay attention to that.

Uncooked quinoa is very small-grained, looking a bit like couscous (which is a pasta rather than a grain.) Cooked, it has a mild, nutty taste, and I read that it can be substituted for rice in many recipes.

As it comes off the plant, quinoa in covered with a bitter-tasting substance which must be washed off. When I first experimented with quinoa, I found that washing it is a total pain, so I'm glad that most quinoa is now sold pre-washed. (But, if you choose to try quinoa, which I encourage, check the package to make sure it's pre-washed.)

The first way I cooked quinoa was to do it in my rice cooker, using chicken stock as a cooking liquid. It was okay, but a little uninspiring. A few tablespoons on a plate as a side dish would be fine.

The second quinoa recipe I made was Quinoa with Tofu and Asparagus. (I used chicken stock rather than vegetable stock.) I liked the basic method of throwing some quick-cook veg on top of a cooking grain shortly before it's done, but this particular dish was too lemony for my taste. You may also note that the recipe doesn't call for any salt to be added: for me, the end product was almost inedible before salting.

My third dish was Fiesta Quinoa Salad. This was quite good. The friend I shared it with thought that a little more olive oil might be good, and I'd be tempted to add some tomato.

Next grain in the project: bulgur.

(This is the second grain covered in my "Grains Three Ways" project, described here. You can see my post on pearled barley here.)

Grains Three Ways: Pearled Barley

The first grain I've chosen for my "Grains Three Ways" project is pearled barley. Pearled barley cannot actually be called a whole grain, since a mechanical process has been used to remove the inedible hull, the germ, and some or all of the bran. However, cooked pearled barley has more than twice the amount of dietary fiber of cooked long-grain brown rice, so I feel comfortable in treating it as fitting my project. (This information taken from the "USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference", which I learned about in doing research for this post.)

The first recipe I made for this project was "James Beard's Barley Casserole". (Although I took my recipe from a site that relies on contributors, I did have the opportunity to confirm the recipe as being more or less identical to that in one of Beard's cookbooks.) Even though I used a mix of moderately fancy mushrooms, I found the recipe somewhat bland. While I like the idea of cooking the barley in a casserole, I'll seek another recipe next time.

The second barley preparation I made was to just do it in my rice cooker. What made it a bit special was that instead of water I used the beef broth that had been the cooking liquid for a slow cooker corned beef last weekend. This was quite successful.

My final dish is "Barley Corn Salad"(pictured below), which I have renamed "John Barleycorn Salad", because, well, why wouldn't you?

I made two small variations: I used rice vinegar instead of white wine vinegar, because it's what I had, and I used a mix of white and yellow corn kernels, because it's what they had at the store today. It is delicious: bright, and refreshing, and complex. It'll make a great summer dish, I think. It's smarter than the average barley!