Hot "Mexican Tabbouleh"

Yesterday evening, I had some leftover pearled barley from a bag I’d picked up a year or two ago on discount somewhere in Santa Cruz. I had originally just boiled what I had in a big pot of water for 25-30 minutes-ish, and then drained it, never having bothered to research the proper method for cooking barley. I’ve been using leftovers in various things for the past few weeks. Tonight, I had roughly a cup and a half worth’s left, and decided to combine it with some of the other random bits and bobs left in my fridge. I always have a few cans of beans in the cupboard, and decided to pull out the chickpeas for this. I had some leftover goodies from the market: a giant bunch of cilantro that I got for 75 cents because it was about closing time, a Lisbon lemon, which tastes is bit lime-ish, and some green garlic, just because. Green garlic arrived in the market just last week, so I was excited to experiment with it, but it is easily substituted with a clove or three of regular garlic, well minced, and maybe some scallions or shallot or whatever you have available. Because we don’t have a dishwashing machine, and my dear fiancé is generally the designated dishwasher, I am trying to be better about cooking one-pot meals, to reduce his washing-up time, so tonight’s dinner was an attempt to expand my repertoire in that direction.

I think this dish is a testament to the glory of simple, pure, well-matched flavors. I didn’t have to add any salt beyond what was residual on the chickpeas, and the balance of lemon/lime juice with garlic and cilantro was clean and vibrant against the soft and nutty flavors of grain and legume. The texture contrast between the chewy barley and the soft chickpea was also interesting and satisfying and made me feel like I was eating a well-balanced meal.

So, here’s what I did: While preheating a medium sized, thick bottomed non-stick sauce-pan on medium-low heat, rinse and chop the green garlic (if you’re using regular garlic, you want to keep your temperatures low and add your other ingredients quickly so you don’t burn it—green garlic is a little more forgiving of a loose approach to cooking times).

When the pot is hot, pour in a glug of olive oil (I follow Jamie Oliver’s intuitive approach to measurements) and let it get hot, and then throw in your roughly chopped garlic. This is generally when I add my seasoning, pepper and salt. I use a lot of fresh ground pepper, but I didn’t add any salt to this dish.

Making sure to stir the garlic every so often, squeeze a lemon, open your can of chickpeas, reserving about half, with its liquid, in Tupperware for another day, and started chopping your pre-rinsed cilantro. Add some chopped cilantro stems (getting some leaves in there is no biggie) to the garlic, and then toss in about ¾ of a cup of your drained chickpeas. Stir occasionally. While the chickpeas warm up, keep chopping cilantro, and adding in stages. I like having fresh herbs incorporated into the cooking process at different phases, because it brings out different aspects of the herb’s flavor, giving the whole dish more dimension. The key to this dish is LOTS of cilantro. Think tabbouleh quantities of green stuff.

Throw your cooked barley into the pot, and give everything a good stir. You just need to get the barley and chickpeas hot enough to eat, so it will only take a few minutes. In the last minute of cooking, pour in the lemon juice. You could just use the juice of one lemon, or go half lemon, half lime, or just use lime. When you dish up, throw some uncooked cilantro leaves on top, add another grind or two of pepper, and if you like some extra hot and tangy flavor, throw in a few sliced pickled jalapenos.

This dish is great because it expresses perfectly all my fundamental guidelines to nutritious, sustainable, affordable cooking. It is centered around in-season vegetables, involves (leftover!) whole grains and beans, all goes in one pot, and takes less than half an hour to prepare, if you are using leftover grains and beans, or beans from a can. You can make all sorts of substitutions if you want. Spelt, faro, coarse bulgur, rice, wheat berries: anything with an al dente sort of chewiness. You can use other kinds of beans, maybe cannellini or kidney or black or lima beans; other kinds of herbs, maybe taking it closer to a Mediterranean or even a Thai style tabbouleh, with basil and mint and lime and fish sauce…why not? It’s your kitchen, you can do whatever you want in it!

So, for the sake of scaling up or down, here’s a measured ingredients list. Let’s call it Hot Mexican Tabbouleh. This made two decent sized portions. I ate both of them.

1 ½ cups cooked pearled barley
half 14 oz can of chickpeas
1 stalk of green garlic, roughly chopped (substitute 1-3 cloves garlic, finely minced, plus scallion) several large handfuls roughly chopped cilantro
Juice of one Lisbon lemon, or a mix of lemon and lime
Lots of ground pepper
1-2 spoonfuls sliced pickled jalapenos (optional)