Home IngredientCooking with Couscous

Cooking with Couscous

Ingredient, Recipes
on September 6, 2012
greek couscous
Mark Boughton / styling Teresa Blackburn
https://easykitchen.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/greek_couscous_with_olive_oh_selective_focus-150x150.jpg

Culinary chat rooms clamor with debate over whether couscous (KOOS-koos) is a grain or a pasta. Let’s resolve the foodie feud by saying that, technically, it’s neither. Traditionally, couscous was made by rolling moistened semolina (the hard cracked wheat produced by the first crushing in the milling process) in a bowl of flour. Since it isn’t made with a conventional dough, it’s not a true pasta—and the flour coating takes it past the point of being simply a grain.

Most Western couscous is pre-steamed and requires no actual cooking. Just soften in boiling water; in minutes, it’s ready to eat. Couscous is incredibly versatile. Enhance the taste by adding minced garlic, ginger and green onions and soften with hot stock rather than water. In African and Arab cuisine, couscous forms a bed for dishes that bear its name, and you can create easy, one-pot meals by stirring couscous into vegetable sautés along with juicy tomatoes or stock toward the end of cooking. It also makes satisfying cold salads, perfect for lunch boxes. 

Handmade couscous was a staple of the Berber culture of North Africa, ideal for nomads because it required little in the way of implements. It could be steamed in woven twigs or reeds over a pot of stew and scooped with the fingers. If you’re a couscous lover, you may want to invest in a couscoussière, a double-boiler type pot that cooks stew in the lower pan and steams couscous in the top pan.
—By Jo Marshall, a food writer in Deephaven, Minn.

  

Greek Couscous with Olives

A fresh, no-cook recipe perfect for picnics and versatile as can be.

Greek Couscous with Olives | Relish.com

Mark Boughton / styling Teresa Blackburn

 

Stuffed Red Peppers with Couscous and Green Beans

Serve hollowed out red peppers filled with feta, couscous and green beans for a vegetarian-friendly main course.

Stuffed Red Peppers with Couscous and Green Beans

Karry Hosford

 

Couscous and Chicken Salad

This simple one-dish dinner showcases fresh tomatoes, herbs and crisp romaine lettuce.

Couscous and Chicken Salad

Mark Boughton Photography / styling by Teresa Blackburn

 

Pesto Shrimp with Couscous

Parchment packets hold a healthy meal of shrimp and couscous.

Pesto Shrimp with Couscous

Mark Boughton Photography / styling by Teresa Blackburn

  

Israeli Couscous with Mango and Cucumber

Sweet mangoes combine with Israeli couscous in this summery salad.

Israeli Couscous with Mango, Cucumber and Cilantro

Mark Boughton Photography / styling by Teresa Blackburn

Related: Greek Couscous with Olives, Stuffed Red Peppers with Couscous and Green Beans, Couscous and Chicken Salad, Pesto Shrimp with Couscous, Israeli Couscous with Mango and Cucumber
Found in: Ingredient, Recipes

PREVIOUS ARTICLE

Using Green Tomatoes

NEXT ARTICLE

More on Miso

Trending now