The proverbial Bulgur Wheat. The “miracle grain” to replace supposedly unhealthy grains like rice and pasta made with white flour. Heard of it through my neighbour Funmi over month ago now. She is on a diet to get her pre baby body back and she is aggressively cutting out so many things. This is a sexy hot mama of 2 and I am afraid for her sometimes, but I guess, since I haven’t been there before, I can’t understand her struggles. I have always taken my size 6-8 body for granted, but it is good to be around someone who is practising healthy eating. That knowledge will surely come in handy. Funmi and Jide have stopped eating rice, all they eat is bulgur wheat. Funmi also happens to be a fantastic cook, in fact I need to do an entire post of all I have eaten in her house. That girl throws it down in the kitchen.
Anyways, she kept telling me she wanted to try cooking bulgar wheat like Jollof rice but she is on a no oil for so so period kind of diet. People, she is really sticking to it. She doesn’t cook anything with oil. Even Efo riro, beans, stir fry. Trust me, I have eaten her meals for some time now and no oil. The day she made Efo riro in my presence with not a single drop of oil, I was amazed. If you weren’t told that no oil was used in cooking it, you wouldn’t have known. Same with beans and even a “stir fry” she made using just water. So, back to Bulgar. She told me to try it like Jollof rice, since she couldn’t and I agreed. I even went as far as buying us both bags of the thing from a health food store. Skinny minny’s like me don’t get this diet craze, so I just left the thing in my store cupboard. Hahahahaha. Yesterday I saw Dupe’s Bulgar wheat cooked like Jollof rice and suddenly got so excited. I tagged Funmi in the post saying, see this is what we talked about. Dupe and I discussed how she cooked hers. Dupe used the one pot method, Funmi and I are of the opinion that the 2 pot method will work better. I will experiment. Someone remind me to, because that Bulgar wheat packet will soon go back to the store and most likely stay there. Looool.
The packet finally saw the light of day for my emergency dinner guest yesterday. For someone who has never heard of bulgur wheat before, not to talk of eating it, I wanted to create a good first time experience, so I thought, rather than just boil it plain, let me make it more interesting and also visually appealing. I decided to fortify the bulgar wheat with vegetables. Precisely Carrots and Spinach. Whether a planned or unplanned dinner, eating at my place is an experience. I always like putting on a show and this combo did not disapppoint at all. Just the wow factor I knew it would be. Here’s how
This is the packet of Bulgur wheat that I used
These are what the grains look like
What I did to get this was, I scapred the skin off the carrots, boiled it in water till it got soft, and pureed in a blender. I mixed the pureed carrots with hot water and poured it into the bowl containing raw bulgur wheat. Which is why it has this orange colour. I had a guest waiting to eat, some pictures, I had to skip and just explain instead
I emptied the entire contents of the bowl into the pot, added a little extra water to cook it till soft and placed it on high heat to cook
This is what it looked like after cooking. If you are wondering what the carrots did to the overall flavour, I will tell you. It made it sweet. Sweet and more palatable to my taste buds. Carrots are naturally sweet. The carrots also gave it an earthy full bodied taste. This sure beats cooking bulgar wheat plain. It made it very interesting to eat and look at.
When I scooped it out and some was left in the pot, I decided on a colour contrast, so I quickly blended a few leaves of spinach and added to what was left in the pot, making it green and left it to cook and absorb the spinach juice for about a minute or 2.
Tah Dah………………… that’s your yellow-orangeish and green bulgar wheat. Pretty isn’t it. Diet meals don’t have to be boring and depressing.
Let’s just say my dinner guest was mightily impressed. Who wouldn’t.
I served this beauty with my amazing Chicken Teriyaki Stir Fry. Recipe click HERE
The image for one of the recipes I took a brief look at, green beans was used as horns in the rice and I thought that was just too cute. I looked at so many pages in such a short time, I can’t even remember which page. Finished off with chopsticks, this is dinner from Dooney’s Kitchen the Express Way. Applications for dinner guest welcome, but please give me enough notice, otherwise penalties of an expensive bottle of wine, will apply. Loool. Those are my terms and conditions.
I don’t know where Bulgur Wheat is sold in Nigeria. For those who live outside of Nigeria, check health food stores, mediterranean food stores or order Online. You can colour your rice like this, just blend vegetables and add to it. You can also do this with couscous or even Eba. To see how to with nigerian starchy solids, click HERE and click HERE
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