Tabouleh & Couscous

So DirtyDingus is having a little confusion, methinks. No, I haven't gone off and made a tabouleh salad--I hate mint and the minced mint leaves are pretty much the "secret ingredient" in tabouleh. You might as well leave out the lemon (*ack*)

There are definitely different styles and recipes for this traditional Lebanese salad, but the image (stolen from the StockFood web site) is what I'm used to seeing when hear "tabouleh." Maybe a slightly more green level on the proportions of parsley/mint to couscous. This one is heavy on the couscous (which I love).

The one thing that perplexes me is the number of recipes showing up on a quick Google that call for Bulgar Wheat instead of couscous. They are totally different animals--well, they are both grains, not animals, but you get my drift. I've cooked with Bulgar (Cracked) Wheat and it's a longer, oval-shaped grain that puffs up like couscous and rice do, but it's chewier, crunchier and has a much stronger, nutty flavor.


Couscous, OTOH, should look like the picture at right shows. It's a round-shaped grain that cooks up softer and is, in fact, oftentimes served like this, with cooked veggies on top. This couscous photo is also stolen from the same stock photography web site (hey, if they don't want people to use their images, they shouldn't put them online ;-) and at least I'm giving multiple link-backs.)

Great, now I'm craving real hummus! Not to be found on the North American continent, btw. I just had to look at these photos, didn't I?