Warm Salad with Swiss Chard, Bulgur, and Baked Tomatoes
4 servings
40 minutes
This salad, in addition to bulgur, can also be combined with sweet couscous to preserve a certain Moroccan flavor, or with pearl barley or lentils to give the dish an Italian flavor. It is also very tasty cold, but I still think it is better to warm it up a little. As for chicken broth, I can say that it is almost always in the freezer, as it gives a rich flavor to cereals and risotto. But if you do not have it, just use 2 cups of water.
1
Preheat the oven to 200°C and turn the stove to high heat.
2
Wash the tomatoes, dry them, slice them about 0.5 mm thick, place on a baking sheet, sprinkle with oregano and thyme, drizzle with 1 tablespoon of olive oil, and put in a preheated oven for 20 minutes. Once the tomatoes are baked, remove from the oven and let cool slightly.
- Tomatoes: 3 pieces
- Dried thyme: pinch
- Dried oregano: pinch
- Olive oil: 3 tablespoons
3
Meanwhile, boil the bulgur in a mixture of one cup of water and one cup of chicken broth – pour the cold liquid into a pot, add the grain, and bring to a boil, then cook for 20 minutes with the lid slightly ajar to allow steam to escape. The grain should double in volume. If after this time the bulgur is still hard, cook for another 10 minutes. The grain should absorb all the liquid. After cooking, set the bulgur aside to cool.
- Bulgur: 1 glass
- Chicken broth: 1 glass
- Water: 1 glass
4
Wash and dry the leaves. I generally recommend getting a salad spinner for drying any leaves – it's inexpensive but very effective: you won't have to spend time and effort drying salad leaves and greens. Additionally, wet or overly moist leaves absorb dressing poorly, making salads less flavorful.
5
In a deep salad bowl, layer chard, bulgur (first layer half of the grain as it may be more than needed), roasted tomatoes, drizzle with balsamic vinegar, add the remaining olive oil, sprinkle with freshly ground black pepper and sea salt to taste and mix well but gently.
- Chard: 400 g
- Bulgur: 1 glass
- Tomatoes: 3 pieces
- Balsamic vinegar: 2 tablespoons
- Olive oil: 3 tablespoons
- Freshly ground black pepper: to taste
- Sea salt: to taste
6
If the salad sits for 10 minutes, all the flavors will blend, and the leaves and bulgur will soak up the juice of the roasted tomatoes and balsamic, making the taste incredibly good! I decided to serve this wonderful salad as a side dish to a medium-rare steak. But it works just as well as a standalone dish.