People familiar with my food know that I really love serving up bold and spicy flavors. So it’s a good idea to have this mild and refreshing Blackeyed Pea Salad to serve alongside some spicy jerk chicken or some Vegan Jollof Rice as a palette cleanser. This delivers the fresh, lemon-dressed, and parsley-packed experience of tabouli, but with a little more substance of an added legume. Blackeyed peas is my choice of bean because I wanted to do a cultural fusion approach to our Juneteenth Celebration by blending this classic Mediterranean dish with African American cuisine.
This is more of an “easy idea” because amounts are quite flexible and up to your own personal tastes. Besides … who really follows a recipe EXACTLY these days? My go-to recipe for Tabouli is from the Mediterranean Dish. All I’m doing here is swapping and adding a few ingredients. Typically, cucumbers offer a crisp, cool crunch to classic tabouli, but I achieve the same effect using a finely diced combination of white onion, celery, and green bell pepper. This combination is known as the “holy trinity” and is oh-so-popular as a base flavor in American Southern dishes like gumbo, and red beans and rice.
Bulgur is a finely ground grain made from cracked wheat and it comes in different levels of coarseness. While shopping, look for a #1 grind because it’s so fine that you only need to soak it in warm water for about 30 minutes to hydrate it. You can usually find it in an “International” aisle of a grocery store. Or, if you have a Mediterranean market … even better!
Ingredients
- 1 cup dry Blackeyed peas (about 3 cups cooked)
- 1/4 cup dry bulgur, #1 grind
- 2 medium stalks of celery
- 1 small green bell pepper
- 1/2 white onion
- 1 vine tomato
- 1/3 cup lemon juice (about 4 lemons)
- 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1 bunch of parsley
- 1/4 cup chopped mint
- kosher salt and pepper to taste
- 1/2 teaspoon honey (optional)
Look for bulgur ground to a #1 coarseness because it hydrates quickly.
Instructions
- Bring the blackeyed peas to a brief boil in salted water. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook until they’re tender but not mushy and falling apart. Stir them occasionally and keep an eye on them. This should take about 30 minutes.
- Meanwhile, in a small bowl soak the bulgur in warm water for about 20 minutes.
- Finely dice the onion, celery and peppers. Remove the inner flesh of the tomato and dice the exterior. Finely chop the parsley and mint. Whisk together the lemon juice and olive oil. Stir all ingredients in a medium bowl then add salt and pepper to taste.
