Burghul Salad (Kisir)

Kisir (Turkish: Kısır) actually means "barren" but I have no idea why they call such a rich salad "barren". This food is very delicious, easy and fast to make and a great dinner for those of you on a diet, or a great salad or sidedish for other food.



It goes great with some "ayran", a traditional Turkish sour drink made from yoghurt. Yesterday, I made some kisir when we wanted to have some light salad for dinner yesterday. I believe you can find all the ingredients at a store that sells middle east food stuff. I write some more suggestions after the recipe. There are many variations of this recipe available, this is how we like it most:

Ingredients (serves 2):

- 1 cup fine burghul (cracked wheat)
- 2 tea spoons salt
- 1 table spoon tomato paste
- 1 table spoon red pepper paste
- 2 tea spoons dried mint flakes
- 2 tea spoons cumin
- 1/2 tea spoon black pepper
- 1/2 tea spoon red pepper
- 3 table spoons olive oil
- 1 table spoon pomegranate syrup
- 1 cucumber
- 1 tomato
- 2 spring onions
- Parsley (fresh)
- Dills (fresh)
- Lettuce leaves

Method:

1) Put the burghul in a bowl, cover with boiling water and let it sit until the water is totally absorbed.
2) Add salt and mix
3) Add tomato paste and pepper paste and mix well
4) Add black pepper, red pepper, olive oil, pomegranate syrup and mix
5) Put in the mint and mix all over
6) Dice the tomatoe, cucumber and cut the spring onions into small pieces.
7) Chop a handful of parsley and dill finely
8) Add these vegetables into the mixture, and mix again.
9) Serve on lettuce leaves with a slice of lemon.

Here are some suggestions: If you cannot find pomegranate syrup you can use the juice of a lemon to replace it. Another thing is almost all of my foreigner friends think that burghul is kuskus. It is not. However, you can use slightly cooked kuskus instead of burghul.

Enjoy ;)