Mediterranean Tabouli

Why has no-one told me about sorrel before?

I was in a bit of a hurry with preparing lunch this morning. The only sensible thing I did was to put the eggplant half that needed using up on to roast nice and early. I thought of making tabouli with a bit of the eggplant stirred in, so I wandered into my parent's front garden, where they have a small bed of herbs running wild. I grabbed a few large leaves from one of the two big plants dominating it and went inside to call my dad and ask what it was I'd just picked, and was it edible? He said, yes, it's sorrel, and it's usually used in soup. I thought, bugger that, it looks like a decent Green Leafy that would do well in a salad. And I was right.

Wikipedia describes the taste of the sorrel as being like that of a kiwifruit; I put some in my mouth sceptically, and by gum if they weren't right. It's damn delicious, but fairly strongly flavoured. Add in extra sorrel if you're feeling brave; I found the amount I'd put in added to the flavour pleasingly without being overpowering.

Use whatever parsley you want; I have frequently been told by recipe books to use flat-leaf when making tabouli, but I'm convinced it's the curly sort you'll see in salad bars. I nicked mine from my parents' front garden, where they have flat and curly growing together incestuously in a pot. There seems to be some inbreeding, with a sort of wavy-leaf parsley developing.

This is not a traditional tabouli, but one that uses Italian flavours (garlic, tomato, olives) as a riff on the original. The butter lettuce is there partly because I try to follow Eat to Live as well as possible, which means lots of green leafies, but mostly because we had half a butter lettuce in the fridge that needed eating.

Mediterranean Tabouli
1 eggplant
1 cup of couscous
1 tsp/1 clove crushed garlic
2 tsp tomato paste
generous squirt lemon juice
half a dozen sorrel leaves, roughly chopped
1 capsicum (red or green – I used half each), chopped
handful of pine nuts – call it about 1/4 cup
handful of chopped black olives – call it about 1/4 cup
1 butter lettuce, washed and roughly chopped

Turn oven to 180°C. Half the eggplant and place cut side down on a baking tray. Add about half a cup or so of water. Roast for 30–40 minutes, or until completely soft. Remove the skin, or not, as you please. I found that the skin went quite soft, and after struggling with a particularly recalcitrant strip, I left most of it on. Cube. Put aside.
Put the couscous, garlic, and 1 cup of water in a small saucepan and cook according to packet directions. Stir through tomato paste and lemon juice.
Add in the sorrel, capsicum, pine nuts and olives and stir through to combine well, making sure the couscous hasn't clustered together in lumps. Let it cool, then serve on a bed of butter lettuce.

Serves two as a main, or four as a side.

If you're not serving immediately, reserve the pine nuts and add just before serving. The damp pine nut is nowhere near as delicious as its crisp counterpart.