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WTG!!! Karen!!!

OMG!!! This was SO good, I ate half the salad!!! Thanks for providing an alternative to the cracked wheat normally found in what we call over here, Tabouleh. I normally just make it without the bulgar, but with everything else. The pine nuts give such a great taste. I love the cinnamon twist, too.

I do have a question, tho: Is allspice the same as a four-spice powder? I don't know the exact ingredients, but I think it's something like cinn, nutmeg, cloves and maybe anise? I threw away the package and I only labelled the jar as "4-spice", silly me!

I can't wait to try this salad with feta cheese (didn't have any when I made this), I'm sure it's heavenly!!

Thanks again and keep the recipes coming!!

Lorrie

You're welcome Lorrie! Middle-Eastern food was my first love and lots of the food is adaptable to LC. Even baba ganouj is OK. You can replace half of the tahini with sour cream if you find the carbs in tahini too high.

Allspice is an individual spice, somewhat like cloves. The four spice mix sounds very good as a replacement.

Have you ever seen the spice mix called kibbeh spice? It has all kinds of stuff - cumin, allspice, oregano, rose petals and a bunch of other stuff. I's just great ground up and used as a marinade on lamb. Gotta get some the next time I'm in Ottawa. It's a bit harder to find these ingredients on the West Coast.

Karen

Now I MUST know what "kibbeh" is... is there a recipe on the go out there, a rough list of ingredients?

By the way, Karen, there's a small Middle-Eastern market over here I've been meaning to research... I'll try and remember to keep an eye out for "kibbeh spice" mix. Sounds DELIGHTFUL.

Hi there-

MMmmmm..... kibbeh is a wonderful Middle Eastern appetizer (?). They're shaped like small American footballs made out of I think it's bulgar (cracked wheat, soaked ) and in the middle is a spiced meat mixture with pine nuts or just spiced nuts - almonds, pine nuts, pistachios. Then it's all deep fried to a dark brown. Delish!

An Iranian family I know also make a kibbeh variation using rice instead of bulgar.......those are really good, too. Needless to say, when low-carbing these treats are a BIG NO,NO,NO But it would be something to plan and look forward to.

So, you see, that's why I asked Karen for an alternative, LOL. I miss them!!!

Lorrie

Lorrie, the possibilities are indeed intriguing... I just had a vision of a spiced meat mixture (football?!), wrapped in a coarse ground nut paste, then fried or baked at very high heat... or maybe the other way around (like a Scotch Egg) with the spiced nuts inside and the ground meat around the outside.

Karen's got the way cool deep fryers, so I'll just lurk here and let her go to it...

PS: hope things are staying reasonably calm over there for you.

The bulgar is used as a binder and also prevents the mixture srom shrinking, so pork rinds and some egg- or just pounding or processing the mixture until pasty - would probably help hold it together. You can also make a pressed-in-the-pan baked version that's pretty good to.

My favourite is the raw kibbeh, kibbeh nayeh in Lebanese. Although bulgar adds a special texture, it would be fine without. I've had it with melted butter drizzled on top and whole green onions and radishes on the side for scooping. I think I'll have to make some soon!

Lorrie, I could probably find kibbeh spice here, but it seems more special picking it up in Ottawa. That's where I learned to love Middle-Eastern food.

I do the same thing when I make baba. I let the eggplants drain for quite a while, then scoop out the seeds. Before LC, I would peel chickpeas for hummous. People thought I was insane until they tried it. Like silk in the mouth.

Karen

... isn't as fussy as it sounds because they POP right out of their skins quite readily. It's like blanching almonds.

Now you've gone and set off a craving for hummus ... which is a double-whammy, since hummus cries out for pita or toasted lavash to dunk in it.

Once upon a time, I made "lowcarb" hummus, using frozen-then-thawed-and-drained TOFU instead of the chickpeas. It was very, very close to the real thing in both taste and texture ... but I confess the amount of GARLIC I put in it probably raised the carb count significantly.



Doreen

Cool idea! I'm thinking extra-firm smooth would work very well.

Karen

Well, I had a FIELD day in the Middle Eastern store on my lunchtime "walk"...

$XX later (oh yeah baby) I've got a basketful of useful goodies, heavy on the seasonings but lightened with some Ceylon Cardamom tea (bags, I know, but useful for the office), Labneh and Mint Water. Yum.

Now, that Kibbeh seasoning, would it be used for mutifarous purposes?? I've got an interesting packet of "Yogurt Dip Mix Seasoning" (and I'm lucky there's some English on it!), containing "mint, basil, onions, tarragon, garlic, black pepper, rose buds and other spices". The rose buds particularly caught my eye (and the lack of fenugreek, for which I have not yet developed a taste).

What about an interesting mixture of ground nuts (almonds, pignons) coating a seasoned "meatball" of lamb? Would that make some kind of kibbeh-a-like as well as the pork rinds? I see I'm going to have to do more recipe research to get a mental "taste" of what we're talking about here.

BTW, that tofu hummous sure sounds yummy to me, piled on a radish slice!