Bulgur Tomato Salad with Mozzarella – a perfect light Lunch or Dinner

You know those random kitchen ideas that suddenly turn out to be brilliant?

That’s exactly what happened here. I was standing in my kitchen, craving something quick and light — and then it hit me: why not cook bulgur in the rice cooker? It’s faster than boiling pasta, there’s less steam fogging up the kitchen, and it’s honestly the easiest thing ever.

The Mozzarella Cubes are hard to spot in the cooked Bulgur, but they’re there

Let’s see what else I added to my salad:

Ingredients (for 1 person)

• ½ rice cooker cup bulgur
• ¾ cup water
• 3 large beef tomatoes
• 125 g mozzarella cheese
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Salt, curry powder, paprika powder, and Italian herbs to taste
• A few tablespoons of Olive oil
• A few tablespoons of Balsamic vinegar

Preparation

Cook the bulgur in the rice cooker with the water — it only takes a few minutes until it’s fluffy and tender, kind of like al dente pasta. When it’s cooked, I recommend to fluff it as you would do with rice, unplug the rice cooker, and let it sit for another 4-5 minutes.

Then, remove the lid and the cooking pot from the cooker, and let the Bulgur cool down while you chop the tomatoes and mozzarella into bite-sized pieces.

In a bowl, combine everything and season with salt, pepper, curry, paprika, and Italian herbs. Drizzle generously with olive oil and a splash of balsamic vinegar, then toss until well mixed.

Bulgur Tomato Salad with Mozzarella – a perfect light lunch or dinner

I ate half of the salad for dinner, and brought the other half to work the next day, and I have to tell you: If you can, let the salad rest in the fridge for a few hours (or even better, overnight in an airtight container). The bulgur soaks up the dressing beautifully — way better than pasta ever could — and the flavor becomes so much more intense.

I was honestly blown away by how good this turned out — so simple, yet so flavorful.
Have you ever tried bulgur before? What do you think about using the rice cooker for it? Let me know in the comments — I’d love to hear your thoughts and kitchen experiments!

#bulgur #cheese #cold #completeDish #curry #mozzarella #noOven #quick #riceCooker #salty #sideDish #spicy #tomatoes #vegetarian

A tweaked version of our preferred dish from Singapore: Oven Baked Chicken Char Siew

Whenever we travel to Singapore, we always visit our preferred food stall in one of the hawker centres. The reason for this is its amazingly delicious Pork Char Siew.

Unfortunately, we don’t have any hawker centres here in Bali, and restaurants who would serve the dish are just too expensive.

Besides that, we don’t really fancy pork meat generally, so I came up with the idea to try to prepare our own Chicken Char Siew at home.

Luckily, I found Hoisin Sauce in one of our supermarkets, and after gathering some more information on the internet about how the Char Siew marinade generally could be prepared, I came up with my own version.

The Chicken Char Siew with Baked Potato Wedges is ready to be devoured

Here we go:

Ingredients (for 3 – 4 persons)

• 4 deboned chicken legs (with skin)
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 2 tablespoons palm sugar (gula merah)
• 2 teaspoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon white vinegar
• 2 tablespoons Hoisin Sauce*
• 1 teaspoon grated black pepper
• 2 tablespoon Soju
• 1 tablespoon oil
• 1,5 tablespoon honey

*When my Hoisin Sauce was finished, and I didn’t have the time to buy new one, I substituted it with a mixture of Teriyaki Sauce and Kecap Manis, the Indonesian Sweet Soy sauce, this worked quite well, too)

Preparation

Peel the garlic, and cut it into small cubes.

Then, mix it with all other ingredients, except the honey inside a small bowl.

Place the meat inside a container, and brush it with the marinade you just prepared.

Let the chicken marinate for at least 3 – 4 hours, better 8 hours or even overnight.

Chicken Char Siew with Baked Potato Wedges

When you’re ready to cook,, take the chicken out of the fridge, and turn on your oven on 190 degrees Celsius (about 375 degrees Fahrenheit), bottom heat only.

Place the chicken legs on a baking tray which you lined with baking paper. Don’t discard the leftover marinade, but pour it into a small bowl.

Be careful not to place the chicken legs too close to the border of the baking paper, as the juices and the marinade may seep out.

But also take care that the chicken legs don’t touch each other, so that they can bake perfectly.

Bake the chicken legs for 15 minutes.

Mix the leftover marinade with the honey, and brush the chicken legs. Continue to bake for another 15 minutes, then brush them again. Repeat this step one more time. In total, the chicken legs should then have baked for about 45 minutes.

Now, turn on the top heat of your oven, and repeat the brushing first after 5 minutes, then another time after 5 minutes, then after 3 minutes, and let them bake 2 minutes more.

The Chicken Char Siew looks delicious

The surface of the meat should be of a beautiful, caramelized brown, almost slightly charred.

Serve with your preferred side dish, and enjoy while still hot.

In our case, we made baked potato wedges as a side dish. It was the perfect addition not only flavour wise, but also because I could bake the wedges in the oven alongside with the chicken.

Since it’s been quite a while since we have eaten Pork Char Siew in Singapore for the last time, I don’t remember exactly how the dish tastes, but I think my chicken came somewhat close to it, and tasted very delicious.

Have you ever tasted Char Siew? Did you like it?

I’m curious to read about your opinions in the comments.

#chicken #completeDish #garlic #honey #hot #marinade #meat #oven #salty #vinegar