Sunday, September 7, 2008

Bento boxes gone Lebanese

Since its a Sunday, it means I have a lot more time to prepare the bento. So I thought I'd try something a bit different and go Lebanese.


Left - Sugar snap peas, carrot sticks and tabouli
Top right - Hummus and tzatziki
Bottom right - Beef rissoles and cumin spiced lamb
Not shown - Lebanese bread cut into quarters

This is a fairly simple bento box even though its a bit more time consuming.than it looks. The tabouli was made using bulgur soaked in water, drained and then soaked in lemon juice. The parsley and mint was washed, drains and wiped dry with paper towels. I then chopped up the herbs finely, added diced tomato and onion, the bulgur and more lemon, salt and pepper. Mix and its done. The washing and drying of the herbs took the longest.

Hummus, theoretically should be super simple to make, if you've got a food processor. Since I don't, and my mortar and pestle is a bit too small to do it manually, I used a blender. Except my blender doesn't handle chickpeas well and it took me 10mins of shaking the damn thing whilst the blades are going to try and make it blend! It was worth it though. The end result was a smooth, creamy dip that has a lovely lemony kick. I made a big batch and froze quite a bit of them to eat another day.

The tzatziki should really be called cacik, which is the Turkish name for it. Simply rougly chop a cucumber, mint, add yoghurt and salt. Stir.

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