Sami Tamimi’s Chilled Tabbouleh Soup – Shorbet Tabbouleh
This dish reinvents classic tabbouleh salad into a tasty chilled soup. It is made with a red pepper paste that adds an incredible depth of flavour to the soup base, and it is topped off with fresh vegetables and toasted bulgur.
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Introduction
Let me introduce all the tabbouleh enthusiasts out there to this refreshing soup. It captures the flavours of tabbouleh, but saves you the meticulous fine chopping required for the salad version – tabbouleh is a refreshing Levantine salad which is also eaten all over Palestine. As the name suggests, this dish was born out of inspiration (or shall we say, leftovers!) from a tabbouleh salad I had made a day before as part of a dinner for friends.
Ingredients
| For the red pepper paste: | |
|---|---|
| 4-5 large | red peppers (1kg) |
| 2 tbsp | olive oil, plus more for sealing |
| 6 large | red chillies, trimmed and roughly chopped (120g) |
| 1½ tsp | sweet paprika |
| 1½ tsp | ground cumin |
| 2 tbsp | apple cider vinegar |
| salt | |
| For the tabbouleh soup: | |
| 120g | fine bulgur wheat |
| 300ml | boiling water |
| 500g | tomatoes, peeled and roughly chopped |
| 1 | garlic clove, crushed |
| 10g | fresh parsley, roughly chopped |
| 5g | fresh mint leaves, roughly chopped |
| 1 small | onion, peeled and roughly chopped (80g) |
| 15ml | lemon juice |
| 4 tbsp | olive oil, plus more for finishing |
| ½ tsp | Aleppo chilli flakes (or regular chilli flakes) |
| ⅛ tsp | ground allspice |
| ⅛ tsp | ground cinnamon |
| salt | |
| To serve: | |
| 30g | cucumber, chopped into ½cm dice |
| 30g | red pepper, chopped into ½cm dice |
| 5g | fresh parsley, finely chopped |
| 5g | fresh mint, finely shredded |
Essential kit
You will need: a food processor or blender
Method
First make the red pepper paste. Preheat the oven to 220°C fan.
Place the peppers on a parchment-lined baking tray and toss with 1 tablespoon of the oil. Bake for about 45 minutes, or until completely softened and charred. Transfer to a bowl, cover with a plate and set aside to cool for about 20 minutes. Once cool enough, remove and discard the skin, stems and seeds. Place the peeled peppers in a colander over a bowl and set aside for 30 minutes to drain. Discard the liquid.
Turn the oven down to 150°C fan.
Place the roasted peppers in a food processor, along with the chillies, the remaining tablespoon of oil, the spices, vinegar and 1 tablespoon of salt. Blitz for 2–3 minutes, until they form a smooth paste. Transfer the paste on to a parchment-lined baking tray and spread it out evenly. Bake for 1 hour, stirring a couple of times, until the paste has thickened.
Spoon the paste into a 500ml sterilised jar and pour over enough oil to seal. Cover and cool slightly, then store in the fridge for up to 2 months. You can also portion the paste into small, sealable bags or use an ice-cube tray for easy access straight from the freezer. It’s all about making your life easier in the kitchen. You will need 3tbsp of red pepper paste for this recipe.
To make the soup, put 90g of the bulgur into a medium bowl with the boiling water. Cover the bowl with a plate and set aside for about 10 minutes, until all the liquid has been absorbed.
Put the rest of the soup ingredients, including the 3 tbsp of red pepper paste, into a blender with 1 teaspoon of salt and blitz for 1–2 minutes, until completely smooth.
Pour into a bowl, add the soaked bulgur and taste the dish to adjust the seasoning.
Cover and refrigerate for an hour (or until ready to serve).
Meanwhile, put 2 teaspoons of olive oil into a small frying pan. Add the remaining 30g of bulgur and fry over a medium–low heat for 3–4 minutes, until the bulgur is toasty and golden brown. Remove the pan from the heat, tip the bulgur on to a plate and set aside to cool down.
When ready to serve, ladle the soup into shallow bowls and garnish with the chopped cucumber and pepper, the toasted bulgur, the herbs and a final drizzle of olive oil.
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