h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'll get back to you later with some of these. But obviously the importance of vegetable's in Middle Eastern cookery is major. After all a roamiong desert nomad doesn't have too many animals to kill off so a vegatarian menu is important for most of the year and the meat was only for the very special occaions.

The stable diet for the Middle East is Couscous which is cracked semolina, served traditionally with a number of thick vegetable sauces. You can experiment with these. Couscous is best cooked by first soaking for a couple of hours and then steaming over the vegetable sauce as it cooks so the flavour permeates the couscous.

However with the spice routes running through the Arabic nations rice and noddles were soon added to their tradition cuisine.

More will follow.

This salad is great in the summer. It's quick and easy beacause you don't have to worry too much about amounts, just make sure there's plenty more salad vegtables and dressing than grains. This is one of those recipies that tastes even better if left in the fridge for as long as possible before serving

Ingredients.

8 oz bulgar wheat or couscous (white or brown rice is very good too)
juice of one lemon
about two tablespoons of Olive oil
8 table spoons of chopped parsley
4 chopped spring onions
a 10 cm piece of diced cucumber
4 table spoons of chopped mint
4 tomatoes, de-seeded and chopped
(Olives and sun dried tomatoes in olive oil can be very nice too)

Meathod.

Cook the grains as directed on the packet, wait for it to cool. Mix everything together.