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Showing posts with the label Cous Cous

eggplant and chickpea tajine with cous cous

No fuss eggplant and chickpea tajine Slice 2 eggplants and sweat them with salt for 1 hour. Heat a couple of tablespoons of extra virgin olive in the tajine pan, and sizzle 2 cloves of garlic (cut into two lengthwise), a few coriander seeds, a few cumin seeds, chili flakes and rock salt. When the spices start to jump around the pan add a roughly chopped onion and when the onion is translucent (not brown) add the eggplant sliced (rinsed). Sauté for 5 minutes, stirring, and then add the content of a can of chickpeas (with their liquid) and a handful of coriander leaves (or parsley, if you don't have/like coriander).  Now cover with the Tajine top and simmer on the lowest setting for a hour or so. At the end the eggplant will be a mush, and the chickpeas incredibly tasty. Add some smoked paprika if you like it hotter. Serve on couscous dressed with extra virgin olive oil and freshly squeezed lemon juice.  Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecch...

Making Fregola Sarda

Making Fregola I dug out these photos for my friend Tiziana, who was here with me making fregola, and she is now a vegetarian! Fregola is something between cous cous and pasta, thicker than the former, and finer than the latter. Start with a blend of fine and coarse semolina and a little salted water. Mix mix mix collect the pellets pass them through a sieve and let them dry for 24 hours. We cooked the fregola like a risotto. First chop and saute some fresh vegetables, slowly add vegetable stock and, finally, saffron. Yum!

Cous Cous with Broccoli Romani

I am the very happy owner of a few brassica plants. I grew them from seeds, bought from the Kings Seeds catalogue, and now that it is spring I am harvesting the last brassica to make space in the veggie garden for other seeds and plants. But does it get tiring eating broccoli and cauli every second day? I need more recipes, and I found that Enza from Io da Grande had a lovely post on cous cous , and that she was using Broccoli Romani. Yes, I had some in the garden just ready! Broccoli Romani from my garde n Enza blanches the broccoli with boiling water, to which she adds salt and olive oil, then drains the broccoli and uses their water to cover the cous cous (the pre-cooked type, of course) while she fries the broccoli with olive oil. Finally she tops the cous cous with the broccoli. I followed her instructions but made a few variations: I only added salt in the boiling water, and then added a little olive oil to the cous cous before covering it with the broccoli broth. I covered t...