This is such a delicious recipe for couscous. Couscous need not be bland and over-looked at luncheons, in preference for some meaty delight. This recipe attempts to capture the juices of peripheral ingredients into the main semolina derived couscous. This is done by getting separately cooking juicy sun-dried tomatoes; I do not know what it is, but upon cooking these tomatoes become plumper and more flavoursome. I think the general perception on sun-dried tomatoes is that they are to be eaten in their current state (no extra handling is required nor recommended) in an anti-pasto sense. Well, I’m anti anti-pasto when it comes to this lovely fruit. Cooking, especially sautéing really enhances the flavour of these babies. Anyway, here’s how it goes. Ingredients
1. Store bought uncooked couscous
2. Boiling water
3. 2 tablespoon of butter
4. 1 tablespoon of olive oil
5. ½ a Spanish onion (this is the purple variety of onion thought to be best for raw consumption but once again, I will be subjecting it to some heat, in my anti-anti-pasto stance. Lotsa hyphens there).
6. 2 – 3 Cloves of garlic, finely chopped, a couple of teaspoons of minced garlic is also fine.
7. 8 sun-dried tomatoes
8. Salt and pepper to taste
9. Some kinda stock powder, not the liquid variety
10. Roast pumpkin (I have used roast pumpkin here because it goes well with the other ingredients. I probably could not say the same for other roast veg, such as sweet potatoes or potatoes in general).
11. 1 small cup of orange juice
Method
1. Place 300grams (or other amount to your choosing, adjusting the recipe accordingly) of couscous into a bowl. Add enough boiling water to the couscous so that it fluffs up, rather than becomes gluggy. For the above weight, this is about ½ cup of water. Repeat this process but substitute the water for the orange juice. Mix water and couscous with a spoon, once fluffy, stir through the butter.
2. In a separate frying pan, add the remainder of the butter with the olive oil. Once hot add garlic and onion and fry til partially brown. Like the ‘beigeish’ brown of a ‘number three toast’. This is a reference to a toaster that ranges from 1-5, choose number three.
3. Slightly lower the heat and add sun-dried tomatoes, sprinkling stock over the incumbent ingredients.
4. Add roast pumpkin to the mix and salt and pepper to taste. Continue cooking and stirring for another five minutes. The juices of the frying ingredients should now be flowing and to aid this process a couple of tablespoons of water and the remainder of the orange juice should be added here.
5. Pour pan-fried ingredients over couscous, stirring through a bit more butter and/or juice. Mix ingredients, top with chopped spring onions or chives and…
6. eat…on its own or like me with barbecued lamb chops. Yum.
