Bulgur with broad beans

Hello bulgur lovers (and soon to be bulgur lovers like my mother)!

To be completely honest here I just tried to copy a recipe from my aunt. She made this very delicious dish for Christmas with rice and broad beans. It was the first time I've eaten broad beans in my life. More than six months have passed since then, and I still can not forget this dish. I've tried to get over it with other dishes...lots of them. Nothing worked. Two results - a fat belly and a broken heart.

And the saddest thing is I couldn't even buy broad beans, because they were not in season. I've tried with dried and canned, but they tasted disgusting (to put it delicately).

This month my torture was over, because I finally found broad beans and was able to make a dish similar to the one my aunt made. Of course I substituted the rice with bulgur, are you kidding me? Not that I'm an enemy of rice, but bulgur is more nutritious and very easy to prepare.

INGREDIENTS

1 kg/ about 2 pounds fresh broad beans (large)
2 cups bulgur
1 bunch parsley
1 cup of spearmint
2 onions
2 tbsp dry basil (if you have fresh - even better, put as much as you like)
1 tsp paprika (ground red pepper)
salt
olive oil

DIRECTIONS

1. The first thing you need to do with the broad beans is free them out of their pods, boil them for 1 min and free each bean out of its coating.

Removing the beans from the pods

Free broad beans with coating

And after just 1,5h of pure fun BAAAM - all the broad beans are freed out of their pods and coats and are ready to get steamy.

Broad beans without coats

At some point I felt like I've been uncoating broad beans a lifetime. But if you listen to some nice music you might even not have the urge to hang yourself. I recommend that.

If you don't want to use all the broad beans right away, you can put them in a freezer bag and freeze them. They should be good for about 1 year, so you'll have some time to think about what you want to do with them.

2. Next - in a large non-stick pan, at medium high temperature, place the chopped onions, the broad beans, add some olive oil, paprika (ground red pepper) and the basil stir for 2 min, add some water (not too much - 1/3 cups) and cover for 3-4 min.
3. Add the 2 cups of bulgur and coat with water (about 1 cup, maybe you'll have to add some more) and cover the pan for about 7-8 min. Check every now and then, if there is enough water in the pan, and if bulgur and beans are ready.

4. In the end - turn off the heat, add chopped parsley and fresh spearmint, stir in and cover the pan for 2-3 min.

And then you're ready!!!

Now I don't remember anymore how many portions this made. But it was a lot, because I remember I ate it for 3 days, I even took it as a lunch at the office. And I have to say - it was very good, but after eating it for 3 days and peeling broad beans for 1,5 h I don't think I'll be making this dish another time this year.

Serve it with some salad - mine was tomatoes, arugula, hot green peppers and some olives.