I love bulgur. I try to make it whenever possible. Last year I was all about the dried cranberry bulgar salad from Delicious Days, but about six months ago I decided I wanted to try different tastes and variations of the same salad, so my experimenting began. What I discovered along the way wasn’t that surprising to me, really. I figured out that I didn’t like fruit or sweet foods mixed with my savoury salads. I just didn’t. Well, aside from dried cranberries. They work. I don’t know why or how, and I don’t care, because they work, damn it.

So I accepted this fact about my taste buds and my brain, and moved on to variations of savoury additions for this particular salad. I tried a lot of different ingredients, hoping each time I had found the winning ingredient that would pull it all together as well as the dried cranberries did. And guess what? It took me a few months to stumble upon the one and only ingredients I can tolerate in this salad, and a lot of tries later, but I did it! And you will understand when I tell you because it’s probably one of the last ingredients that would cross your mind too.

The magic ingredient, for my money anyway, is crushed or chopped up pistachios! Yup. There you have it, kids. Pistachios. Huh. I did not see that one coming, either. Not only does it taste delicious, it balances out the texture and colour palettes, too. Try it. You just may end up loving it as much as I do, too.

* Chicken stock (pre-made, packet or from scratch – whichever you desire)
* Chickpeas (fresh from the can and washed, or dry and soaked overnight – doesn’t matter)
* Bulgar (grain size is personal choice, but I prefer medium coarse more)
* Mushrooms (I love to add veg wherever possible, and I use the canned to speed this up)
* Tomato (one medium, diced, should be fine for 4 servings)
* Pistachios (a handful, crushed or coarsely chopped)