“I have something for you in the car – a bouquet,” said my friend Lisbeth when we recently met for a glass of wine in the late afternoon on one of the city’s restaurants.
I thought it was a little odd that she would give me flowers, but then she added: “It is either mint or lemon balm.”
“You do not know if it’s mint or lemon balm?” I laughed.
“I have both in the garden and it grows in between each other, so I just took something for you,” said Lisbeth, who knows that I will be happy to get ingredients for cooking as a gift.

When Lisbeth opened the trunk and took out the “bouquet”, I did not need to rub on a leaf to determine what it was – both the smell and the flowers that mint had set, was a dead giveaway.
The mint had had a good time in Lisbeth’s garden, so it was strong and full of flavor. I used some of it to throw in the boiling water for my artichokes the same evening.
The rest is now in a vase and looks beautiful, but I think it should be used in a taboulleh. Or maybe just as mint tea, which I love.

Tabbouleh

1 bunch of parsley, yielding about 50 grams chopped parsley

75 g fine bughol (cracked wheat)

250 g rinsed, finely chopped, ripe tomatoes

2 medium spring onions (trim both ends, remove green and retaining about 5 centimeter) finely chopped

1 tsp salt

1/4 tsp freshly milled black pepper

a pinch of cinnamon (optional)

3 tbs lemon juice

3-4 tbs extra virgin oil

 a large handful of mint leaves, rinsed, drained and finely chopped.

Undo the bunch of parsley and gather the sprigs into small bundles so that the leaves are packed together at the same level. Place each bundle on your chopping surface, grip the upper part of the parsley firmly with one hand and with the other, use a sharp knife to cut of the stalks; save these to flavour stock or fish. Chop the rest of the parsley, rinse and drain.

Wash the burghol, drain quickly, squeeze out excess Water and place in a salad bowl. Cover the burghol with the tomatoes, allowing it to absorb the tomato juices. Meanwhile sprinkle the onion with the salt, black pepper and cinnamon (if used) and rub these in with your fingers (they reduce the sharpness of the onion),then add to the burghol and tomato in the bowl. Add the lemon juice, oil, mint and parsley and mix well. Taste and adjust seasoning. If the tabbouleh is not moist enough, mix in about 1,5 tbs of water.

Serve immediately with leaves of cos lettuce or (if tender) cabbage. To eat, pile the tabbouleh into the hollow of a leaf.

Note1: The recipe above is original lebanese. I must admit, that I do leave out the cinnamon – and I eat the tabbouleh with warm pitabread instead of the cos lettuce.

(the recipe is from a magical cookerybook called “Fragrance of the Eath/Lebanese Home Cooking”/Nada Saleh, Saqi Books, 1996)

The book opens with a quote from The Prophet/Kahil Gibran:

“Then an old man, a keeper of an inn, said,

Speak to us of Eating and Drinking.

And he said:

Would that you could live on the fragrance og the earth,

and like an air plant be sustained by the light”