Bulgur Salad

This nutty-flavoured and pleasingly textured grain is another of those culinary staples where other more attention-seeking ingredients can show themselves off. Although we’re more familiar with it as a salad, in the Eastern Med it’s used as a pilaff, and I think it works well as hot ballast for fish, chicken or lamb dishes. You can use the same method of preparation: simply soften the shallots in some olive oil first, then add the swollen bulgur and whatever other things you care to put in.