Day 56, Koos-koos

I remember a day, a several years ago when me and a friend of mine that I don’t see anymore were out and around at night with absolutely nothing to, and I mean really nothing to do, like we were literally just wasting gas driving around town. We ended up eventually back at his work, a local barbeque eatery, and met up with someone that he either knew from somewhere or worked with (I’m still not sure which). After spending time playing pool and doing nothing much we ended up back at this other guys home nearby (and about five minutes from my house, luckily) to play pool on his own pool table (I promptly sucked up the entire game) and hang out and watch t.v. because, well, what else are you going to do at one in the morning? We all ended getting fairly hungry, enough so that the guy treated us all to this, so he said, Indian food consisting of stuff that I can’t rightly remember but can recall as being very meaty and bready. The one thing that I do positively remember eating, because one of us asked him about it, was what I’m going to talk about today. (And then I had to drive my friend home because he had been drinking quite a bit and could hardly walk straight and was spouting various nonsensical gobbledigook...sometimes being the permanent designated driver of the group does have its drawbacks).

That food being, if you haven’t already figured it out from my phonetically worded title:

Couscous!



Yes, folks, couscous, the food so nice they named it twice. The food so carbohydrate loaded that you could choke a yak with the stuff, or some such thing. The food so versatile that it’s almost like the rice of the Maghreb (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maghreb). Tasty and filling, it’ll puff up in your stomach and leave you content to sit around basking in the glow of post-couscous stuffing euphoric happiness.

Couscous itself is made by sprinkling semolina with water and then rolling the wheat to form small pellets, sprinkled with dry flour to keep the pellets separate, and then put through a sieve. Those pellets which are too small fall through the sieve and are put through the very labor intensive process of being sprinkled with semolina and rolled with flour. Couscous was traditionally made from the hard part of the hard durum wheat that resisted the millstone grinding. Now the process is largely mechanized.



One of the very first written references to couscous is from an anonymous 13th century Hispano-Muslim cookery book called, in translated English, “The book of cooking in the Maghreb and Al Andalus” that boasted a recipe for couscous “known all around the world”. Whether it was or not, I don’t know, but I certainly am glad that the knowledge was passed down from those humble origins through Granada, through a Syrian historian from Aleppo in the 13th century, through Provence and Brittany in Europe in the 17th century, and etc. The process of cooking couscous, steaming the couscous over a broth in a special pot, may have originated in West Africa in the 10th century in the area now made up of Niger, Mali, Mauritania, Ghana, and Burkina Faso.

To cook couscous is surprisingly simple, requiring only a quick blanch in boiling water if you’re cooking pre-steamed couscous which can be found in most places in Western supermarkets. All that needs to be done is to boil a pot of water, the measurements being about a cup and a quarter water for every cup of couscous, stir the couscous in quickly, remove from the heat, and let stand for about five minutes. BAM! Done. Season it or combine it with something else as you want. And then, voila! light, fluffy couscous awaiting your eager consumption. It’s easy enough that an untrained monkey could do it, which must be why it turns out so well for me.



I hope this all helps you and I desperately hope that you’ll go out and find some couscous the next time you’re out visiting the ol’ local supermarket or farmers market. It’s tasty and light, fifty grams of the stuff will end up looking like an entire meal in itself, and, man, is it filling.

Have fun with it, people, and start looking for crazy, exotic things that you may not have ever tried before because it is totally worth the risk. T.V. dinners and spaghetti and tomato sauce get old quickly, why not try something new?

For those who are interested in something tasty I found this while looking around (I personally would get rid of the garbanzo beans but that’s just my allergies talking, looks delicious):

Vegetable Couscous Stew
Recipe courtesy Kathleen Daelemans

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
Coarse grained salt and cracked black pepper
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
3 zucchini, cut into 3/4-inch cubes
3 yellow squash, cut into 3/4-inch cubes
1 pound mushrooms, cut into 3/4-inch cubes
1 clove garlic, minced
4 tomatoes, peeled and diced, or 1 (14-ounce) can diced tomatoes
3 cups chicken or vegetable stock
1 (19-ounce) can garbanzo beans
1/4 cup chopped parsley, plus 1 tablespoon
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons fresh basil
2 cups couscous, prepared according to package instructions
1/2 cup raisins, soaked in boiling water for 5 minutes and drained

In a large saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add onions and saute until softened, approximately 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
Add thyme, zucchini, squash, and mushrooms. Saute for 5 to 10 minutes.
Add garlic and stir.
Add tomatoes, stock, and garbanzo beans. Let simmer for 5 to 10 minutes. Add more stock if dry.
Add 1/4 cup parsley, red wine vinegar, and basil. Taste and adjust seasonings.
Add the raisins and remaining parsley to the prepared couscous, and stir to combine.
Plate couscous and spoon stew over the top.