Home-Brew Recipes

Posts Tagged ‘couscous’

This delicious summer dish is packed with seasonal vegetables. Serve with yogurt and bread for a stunning vegetarian dinner-party dish and follow with a simple lemon sorbet for dessert.

Ingredients:

3 – peeled and quartered red onions, 3 – courgettes which is halved lengthways and cut across into 3 pieces, 3 – red, green, yellow peppers which is seeded and quartered, 2 – aubergines which is cut into 6 segments, 3 – leeks trimmed and cut into long strips, 4 – tomatoes, 6 –garlic cloves, 25g – fresh roast and sliced ginger, a few large fresh rosemary sprigs, 600ml – warm water, 25g – diced butter, 2/3 cup – olive oil, 10ml – clear honey, 500g – medium couscous, 45ml – sunflower oil and salt and ground black pepper to taste.

Preparation Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 200⁰ C. Arrange all the vegetables in a roasting pan. Tuck the garlic, ginger and rosemary around the vegetables. Pour the olive oil over the vegetables, sprinkle with sugar or honey, and salt and pepper to taste, and roast, turning occasionally, for about 1 ½ hour until they are tender and slightly caramelized.
2. When the vegetables are nearly ready, put the couscous in a bowl. Stir a pencil of salt into the water, then pour it over the couscous, stirring it to make sure it, is absorbed evenly. Leave to stand for 10 minutes, then, using fingers, rub the sunflower oil into the grains and break up any lumps. Tip into an overproof dish, arrange the butter over the top, cover with foil and heat in the oven for about 20 minutes.
3. To serve, use your fingers to work the melted butter into the cousous and fluff it up, then pile it on a large dish and shape into a mound with a pit at the top. Spoon some vegetables into the pit and arrange the rest around the dish. Pour the oil from the pan over the couscous. Serve immediately with yogurt or harissa if you prefer, and bread for mopping up the juices.

This simple yet delicious dish of couscous with dates, rasins and nuts can be served as a course on its own or as an accompaniment to a spicy tagine or roasted grilled meat or poultry.

Ingredients:

600ml – warm water, pinch of saffron threads, 75g – dried dates, 115g – dried apricots, a little butter, 75g – seedless rasins, 115g – blanched almonds, 75g – pistachio nuts, 500g – couscous, 5ml – salt, 45ml – sunflower oil, 30ml – olive oil, 10ml – ground cinnamon and 45ml – caster sugar.

Preparation Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180^o C. Put the couscous in a bowl. Mix together the water, salt and saffron and pour it over the couscous, stirring. Leaves to stand for 10 minutes. Add the sunflower oil and using your fingers, rub it thorough the grains. Set aside.
2. Chop the dates and slice the apricots into slivers. In a heavy pan, heat the olive oil and butter and stir in the dates, apricots, raisins and most of the almonds and pistachio nuts.
3. Cook until the rasins plump up, and then tip the nuts and fruit into the couscous and toss together to mix. Tip the couscous into an overproof dish and cover with foil. Place in the oven for about 20 minutes, until heated through.
4. Toast the reserved slivered almonds. Pile the hot couscous in a mound on a large serving dish and sprinkle with the cinnamon and sugar – these look attractive sprinkled in stripes down the mound. Scatter the toasted almonds over the top and serve hot.