Bulgur

Let me tell you about bulgur, and why it behaves so differently from plain wheat.

Bulgur is wheat that has already been cooked, dried and cracked before it ever reaches your kitchen. That first cooking gelatinizes the starch and sets it. So when you pour hot water or broth over bulgur later, you're not cooking it from scratch — you're just waking it up. That's why it takes far less time at the stove than a grain that starts out raw. This is wheat, so gluten is present — keep that in mind if you're avoiding it.

Choose bulgur by look and smell, not by the bag's promises. Grains should be evenly coloured, dry, and separate — never dusty or clumped together. Bring it close and smell it: it should smell like toasted bread, nutty and clean. A flat, cardboard smell means it's been sitting too long.

Some people say bulgur and cracked wheat are the same thing. No! Cracked wheat is raw, just broken. Bulgur is parboiled first, then dried and cracked. Confuse the two and you'll boil bulgur far longer than it needs, wringing out its structure until you're left with porridge instead of those separate, fluffy grains that make a proper tabbouleh or pilaf sing.