Recipes

Couscous Salad Recipe

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Disclaimer: I was sent the wholemeal couscous by San Remo.

As you may have gathered, I am quite keen on couscous but one thing I normally steer well clear of is wholemeal pasta. I had a very unhappy experience with it as a child (it was so horrible we ended up feeding it, uncooked, to my pet mouse, who loved it) so I was both sceptical and interested when San Remo released the new wholemeal couscous. Out for a drink, I mentioned it to a friend who got quite excited about the idea and immediately said she’d look out for it. So I’m assuming that more than reader will be interested to know a higher fibre, lower GI version of couscous exists and is produced by a South Australian company!

Anyway, new couscous meant time to try out a new recipe. Given that the Moroccans should know a thing or two about couscous, I turned to Made in Morocco and when I spotted the recipe for a couscous salad made with chickpeas and goat’s cheese I was sold.

This recipe isn’t flawless – so read on for what I did and what I will do next time!

Begin by roasting and skinning some red capsicums. Heat your oven to 200°C (conventional), cut your capsicums in half and place them skin side up on a tray (for ease of cleaning, I recommend a tray lined with baking paper). Drizzle over some olive oil and roast for ~ 30 minutes or until the skin starts to char and blister. Remove from the oven, place in a bowl and cover with cling film so that they sweat. Once they’ve cooled, you’ll be able to peel them quite easily! Slice and set aside.

In a large pan (I used a Corningware pan, so it could go straight from stove to table), heat some olive oil and lightly cook one largeish onion, finely chopped. Add two cloves of crushed garlic, 1 tsp of turmeric and ½ tsp of ground cinnamon. Quickly cook off the spices before adding 1½ cups of stock (chicken or vegetable).

Bring the stock to the boil and add 1½ cups of couscous (I used 50:50 white and wholemeal). Stir through the couscous and remove from the heat. Cover and leave for ~ 10 minutes, then fluff up the couscous and leave to cool a little.

When you’re ready to serve, stir through the remaining ingredients: 1 tin of chickpeas, drained and rinsed, 150g of goat’s cheese, crumbled (I used Udder Delights’ chèvre which is widely available in supermarkets, but not particularly cheap), the juice of one lemon (I also added some grated rind) and plenty of fresh mint and parsley. While you can live without the parsley (we did) don’t skimp on the mint.

If you have it, top the salad with some finely sliced rind of preserved lemon.

This recipe is good in principle but there are a few problems. Firstly, the recipe says it serves four. Really? 1½ cups of couscous more like serves about 10. I brought this salad to our Christmas lunch of 8 adults and one child and only about a quarter of it was eaten! Secondly, I feel that the proportions are slightly out of whack. There are too many chickpeas, possibly not enough goat’s cheese and definitely not enough capsicum.

I’d definitely make a variation on this again. I’d do the onion, garlic, turmeric and cinnamon, I’d omit the chickpeas altogether and would increase the amount of roasted capsicum (or add other roasted vegetables, as I think some roast pumpkin would work really well here). Unless I was making this to take to a massive BBQ I’d also halve the quantities.

Recipe issues aside, the wholemeal couscous worked a treat. Andy didn’t even notice the difference and the next couscous salad I make (which will be on Monday, different recipe next time!) I’m going to use 100% wholemeal, not half and half.

Anjum Anand’s Punjabi Chicken Curry Recipe

- Alex 4 Comments

Punjabi Chicken Curry

A brief spate of cool weather saw us thinking about fitting in a curry. Andy initially wanted a lamb curry but we’d had arni souvlaki earlier in the the week so we ended up opting for chicken.

I chose this recipe, from Anjum’s New Indian, mainly because we had the ingredients all in house and ready to go. I’m not sure if Anjum Anand’s shows have made it on to Australian TV, but she did some fun programs in the UK where she showed curry enthusiasts that it was just as easy to cook a curry from scratch as it is to open a jar.

While this recipe doesn’t require a lot of cooking time for the meat, it does require time and it lends itself really well to being something you prep in the morning. Try throwing it together when you get home from work and you’re tired and hungry and I doubt it will turn out as well.

Begin by making a paste of about 1 tsp of crushed ginger, 5 cloves of garlic and a little water.

Next, take 2 black cardamom pods, give them a whack and put the seeds into a mortar. Add 2 cloves and grind and then mix in about ½ tsp of ground cinnamon. The black cardamom seeds smell amazing: they have the anise notes you’d expect but also a really strong menthol character. As in, really really strong. Make this curry if you have a cold!

In a large pan (in my case, the wok) heat some peanut oil, add about 20 curry leaves (washed and dried) and 1 onion, finely chopped. Anand uses a bay leaf but we have a curry leaf plant and I love the smell of them.

Now, boring part number one. Cook unti the onion browns. This takes ages. Don’t make the mistake of whacking up the temperature, because all that does is burn the onion. You need a medium temperature and you need to hang around and stir the onion so that it browns evenly. This part of making a curry bores me to tears but it is also well worth it.

When the onions are brown, add the garlic and ginger paste and, in my case, one dried Kashmiri chilli. Anand uses fresh, whole green chillis that you prick all over. But, as with the curry leaves, we have the dried chillis coming out of our ears so that’s what got used!

Cook this for a few minutes and then add your chicken. I used chicken thigh fillets (about 400g), cut into generous mouthful sized pieces. Anand always recommends using joints. Yes, the bones do mean flavour but generally I’m pretty lazy and thighs at least have more flavour than breast fillets. They’re also less likely to dry out.

Brown the chicken and then add the spices: 2½ tsp ground coriander, 1 tsp ground cumin, a pinch of red chilli powder (to taste, really), some turmeric and about 1 tsp of garam masala. And, of course, the cardamom, clove and cinnamon mix. Also add a good pinch of salt. Stir, and add three smallish tomatoes, cut into wedges. Top up the pan with some water and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat, cover and cook for a further 15 minutes.

Uncover the pan and increase the heat to high to brown and reduce your sauce. This is boring bit number two, but not as bad as the first as you don’t have to hang around quite as much. But you do really need to let it cook slowly for a while with the occasional stir. Suddenly you’ll notice the sauce has thickened and darkened.

When you’re ready to serve, mix through a generous handful of chopped coriander. Instead of rice, we had homemade naan bread. Delicious, and absolutely worth the hanging around and stirring!

Christmas Sweets

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Christmas pudding '09photo by Simon Pearson

Last night I chatted to Peter Godfrey about Christmas sweets and treats (yes, for a change I’m not posting the best part of a fortnight later but there wouldn’t have been too much point to that, would there?).

This Christmas I’m doing dessert and while I have decided to do a pavlova I’m still umming and ahhing about my second choice. I think the key with a Christmas dessert, more so than any other time of year, is that it’s something you can have ready in advance. As much as possible when you’re feeding a horde, Christmas should be about spending time with your guests rather than hiding in the kitchen. Of course, you might also have had a few too celebratory drinks so it’s best not to heap pressure on yourself with fiddly last minute finishing touches.

If you have plenty of time you might want to try your hand at making a trifle. Making one from scratch takes a pretty long time (especially if you need to make the sponge twice like I did!) but none of the steps are particularly hard and there’s ample pauses for cups of tea while you’re waiting for things like the jelly to set!

Other great prepare ahead desserts are cheesecake and chocolate mousse. We have cheesecake quite often during the year so it’s not that special, but chocolate mousse definitely is! Buy the best chocolate you can afford and treat yourself to a splash of brandy or rum. Be sure to serve with lashings of cream.

Finally, Christmas wouldn’t be complete without shortbread. If you make nothing else this Christmas, make these easy biscuits yourself – and the recipe is even gluten free.

Post celebrations I’ll be sure to post my pavlova and whatever else it is I end up making!

What sweet treat is always on your Christmas table?