Tabbouleh: Lots of Parsley, Little Couscous

Tabbouleh is a couscous salad, a very refreshing dish, the kind you feel like eating in summer.

One summer's day, during my holidays, I was helping out in the kitchen at my sister-in-law's restaurant, and we decided to put tabbouleh on the menu.

Nobody ordered it, until a waitress came in and said "2 gazpachos, 3 salads and a tabbouleh". We made it excitedly and served it, and a while later the waitress came back and told me the person who'd ordered it was a Moroccan customer. I asked her to find out what he thought of it. After a while she came back with the answer: he'd said it was good, but it wasn't tabbouleh.

In the words of the customer, who I gather was well versed in Moroccan tables and later came by the kitchen to say hello: "tabbouleh: lots of parsley, little couscous". That's the idea of the dish: there has to be lots and lots of parsley. I also add mint, though not as much. It's a very fresh salad, as it also has lemon.

Ingredients

• 1 ½ cups couscous (fine cracked wheat)
• lots of parsley
• 6 lemons
• 4 cucumbers
• 4 medium tomatoes
• 6 tablespoons oil
• 2 teaspoons fresh mint
• 2 teaspoons cumin
• 2 tablespoons coarse salt

Method:

Cut all the vegetables very finely (brunoise). Put the cracked wheat in a bowl. Add the oil, vegetables, lemon juice and seasonings. Mix everything well. Leave to marinate in the fridge for a few hours. But it shouldn't stay a whole day in the fridge, because the lemon wilts everything. Serve with black olives and a sprig of parsley or mint.

The one in the photo has more couscous than usual, but it's a version for kids.

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