Seven Vegetables couscous

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Originally uploaded by Andyrob

Couscous with seven vegetables is a classic dish normally made with turnip, carrots, potato, leek, onion, tomato and courgettes or a similar combination.

Basic couscous recipe video

Real Couscous Recipe

This is the very traditional couscous recipe for making the actual grains themselves. A long winded way of creating an authentic iconic staple foodstuff of great cultural significance. I'm not suggesting you should abandon your packet of instant pre-cooked couscous, it is so convenient, but I think it's good to know more about the origins and history behind our favourite dish.

Real Traditional Couscous Recipe

PREPARATION of the couscous grain

In the arabic, moorish and berberic societies where couscous originally developed, the making of the couscous is an activity of the women, with much time consuming work involved. This is the process:

• Take a large, flat plate and place a handful of freshly ground hard durum wheat kernel pieces.
• Sprinkle on some salted water and some of the wheat flour.
• With the palms of the hands, gently massage the grains with rolling circular movements until granules of couscous begin to form. Continue until the granules are mostly of a sufficient size or slightly larger.
• Sift the grains with sieves of different diameter, starting with the smallest, to obtain piles of granules of similar sizes. Fine, medium and coarse.
• Finally, leave the couscous grains spread thinly in a large flat pan out in the sun to dry, then store or cook.

Very quick couscous recipe with salad and peppers

Here's a great couscous recipe which is suitable for vegetarians and can be rustled up in just ten minutes. It's from the Waitrose supermarket chain so it uses some of their own line products as ingredients, but obviously you can adapt those quite easily if there isn't a Waitrose store near you.

Serves: 4
Ingredients

180g Waitrose Wholesome Couscous
300ml hot chicken or vegetable stock
350g jar Gaea Flame Roasted Red Peppers, drained
1 ripe medium avocado
1 bunch salad onions
½ cucumber
100g cherry vine tomatoes
160g bag Waitrose Beetroot Salad leaves
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp Waitrose Balsamic Vinegar
Method

1. Place the couscous in a bowl, add the stock and leave for 5 minutes until the water has been absorbed. Fluff up the couscous with a fork and allow to cool completely.
2. Roughly chop the peppers. Halve the avocado, remove the stone and peel, then chop the flesh roughly. Trim and finely chop the salad onions. Peel and halve the cucumber lengthways, remove the seeds using a teaspoon, then slice into chunky pieces. Halve the tomatoes.
3. When ready to serve, place the cooled couscous, peppers, avocado, onion, cucumber, tomato and salad leaves in a serving bowl. Whisk the lemon juice and vinegar together with a little seasoning and drizzle over the salad. Toss well and serve, either as a meal in itself, or with hand-carved turkey or ham slices from the deli counter, plus warm crusty bread.

Cook's tips

Try using vegetables such as roasted courgettes, red onions and aubergines, or use millet or bulghur wheat instead of couscous.

Drinks recommendation

Serve with a glass of cider.

Acknowledged Source of couscous recipe:

from Waitrose

Barley couscous recipe

Delicious Barley Couscous recipe

I'm pointing out a barley couscous recipe for a change because not everybody realizes this but ordinary couscous is made from durum wheat. Essentially, it's a type of pasta. Now modern dieticians recommend that you don't eat pasta more than 2 or three times a week so if you've already had spaghetti one day, lasagne another and then fancy couscous the next well, what do you do? One solutions, and this is great for people with wheat allergies, is barley couscous. Barley couscous has an interesting slightly nutty flavor which just adds another great alternative to wild rice, quinoa, wheat couscous and so on. This recipe comes from Belazu, the people who make barley couscous and also an excellent though rather mild rose harrissa.

Barley Couscous, Beetroot & Feta Salad
Serves 4

* 1 large raw beetroot
* 2 smallish red onions, finely sliced
* 60ml lemon juice (about 1 juicy lemon) or any white vinegar (ie cider, rice or white wine vinegar)
* ½ tsp caster sugar
* 250g Belazu Barley Couscous
* 1 tsp Maldon salt (or 1/3 tsp fine salt)
* a generous grinding of black pepper
* 2 handfuls of flat parsley leaves
* 150g feta, crumbled
* 50ml extra virgin olive oil

Pre-heat the oven to 200°C/Gas 6. Wrap the beetroot tightly in foil and bake in the oven for 90 minutes, until a sharp knife can be pushed through it easily. Remove from the oven; peel off the foil and leave to cool.

Toss the onions with the lemon juice and sugar and leave them in the fridge for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, put the couscous in a bowl and pour on enough cold water to barely cover, add the salt and pepper and mix well. After 5 minutes, when the couscous will have absorbed all the water, add 125ml of hot water and mix well to fluff it up.

Peel the beetroot – the skin can usually be rubbed off, but use a paring knife if it’s being too difficult. Cut into chunks and add to the couscous. Toss in the onions and lemon juice, the parsley, half the feta and the olive oil. Mix everything together and divide among 4 plates, then sprinkle the remaining feta on top.

from http://www.belazu.com/recipetest/barley-bouscous-salad.html

Couscous Recipe Video

This couscous recipe video was made using animoto. Upload a few photos and some music, steam for 3 minutes. Add seasoning to taste

couscous recipe with fish

The aim of this video is to show the process of preparing the pan with fish and vegetables to go with the couscous recipe.




OK, the meal on show was actually part of an art video project, but the meal was taken home and eaten by my family straight afterwards. You can ask my two sons.

Ingredients:

1 rather splendid looking Parrot fish
2 chopped onions, celery, garlic, chilli and ginger.
3 Oil
4 sweet peppers
5 Real cider

6 Instant couscous

Method

Well you can see what to do in the video. Start by sauteing the chopped onion, garlic and ginger in a pan with some vegetable oil. After a while add more chopped vegetables. Lay the fish on top. Pour in the cider. Now this is important, it must be real cider made from apple juice, not industrial cider which is chaptalised with glucose syrop and concentrate then watered down to strength. So forget Strongbow and Magners and get something like Westons organic vintage or a good Normandy brut.

Turn the fish over after a few minutes, turn off the heat and cover.

To make the couscous, place two cups of instant medium grain couscous in a bowl, ladle on a couple of spoonsfull of the liquid from the fish, and add freshly boiled water so that the couscous is covered with an extra half inch of liquid above the surface of the grains. This half inch will quickly be absorbed so measure it by eye straight away, then cover the bowl with a plate.

Three minutes later you can divide up the couscous onto three plates and place the vegetable and fish on top. How you share one fish between three people is up to you - it's only a lunch.

I hope you enjoyed this video and couscous recipe. Cheers