The Bulgar Bugle

This is an OKLAHOMA CITY Treat.

So there I was yesterday, thinking about dinner.  Bulgar was on the menu, but it was time for something new.  The coop’s May order is approaching and I need a new recipe for my producer notes this month.

Back when I bought a lot of supermarket foods, one of the staples of my shopping cart was “Rice-a-Roni: the San Francisco Treat!”  Something brought that memory up from the depths of my long-term brain archive, and I thought, “That’s it — I’ll make ‘bulgaroni’”

So I sauteed some onions and shitaake mushrooms and shredded carrots in olive oil in a cast iron skillet.  I added two cups uncooked unsifted bulgar, and 1/2 cup vermicelli broken into 1/2 to 1 inch pieces and sauteed the vegetable/bulgar/pasta mixture a few minutes.  Then I added 5 cups beef broth from the freezer, 2 teaspoons of my infamously Hotter than Hades Habanero Sauce, and brought the mixture to a boil. 

I put the cover on the skillet (it’s actually a “dutch oven skillet” and popped it in the oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.  Voila, a brand new dish was born – bulgaroni, and it was quite tasty as a side dish with ham and baked carrots.   It would be quite tasty as a main dish.  I can imagine adding some fried hamburger, or cooked turkey or chicken (with turkey or chicken broth instead of the beef), or more assorted vegetables and a vegetable stock for my friends who are vegans or vegetarians.

The next time I do this I am going to increase the amount of pasta.  The original Rice-a-roni version is equal parts rice and pasta.  In my recipe, just as you add twice the amount of broth as you do bulgar, I added twice the amount of broth as I did pasta, so 2 cups unsifted bulgar and 1/2 cup pasta called for 5 cups broth.  I also think it is important to saute the bulgar and pasta.

Perhaps I should call this bulgarcelli, since I used vermicelli pasta.

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