To be honest I really wanted to start of with Thai food.

But Christmas has not been kind to our waistlines and there’s a few cuisines around the world I absolutely cannot resist. Thai, Indian, and Italian are out for that reason.

Following the organization of Cooking Light Global Kitchen: The World’s Most Delicious Food Made Easy I have selected Middle East and Africa as the topic of the first two-week cycle.

The first dish: a double and a bit ambitious, is Chicken Tabbouleh with a Tahini Drizzle and Batrik - a Turkish salad of bulgur and walnuts.

Notes:

• The Tabbouleh ended up a bit dry - I think the bulgur soaks up everything well; the Tahini Sauce didn’t help much - add too much and it all tastes like tahini, add too little and the grains dry it all out;
• I ended up burning the chicken and surpringly that burned chicken ended up stealing the show - it was really good, no doubt;
• I liked the Batrik although I feel I used a bit too much sauce – a tomato based sauce – and it drenched the whole dish. The texture was amazing and I look forward to making this again.

For breakfast I made scrambled eggs with the remaining chicken, carrots, peas, and onions. The difference from past attempts was incorporating some milk into the eggs which made them fluffier.

I liked the texture of the carrots, but I feel between their sweetness and that of the caramelized onion it all ended up being a bit too much.

Nothing Sriracha cannot fix.