Do any of you have any good tips or ingredients for making couscous really good?My current recipe is a 1:1 ratio of couscous to chicken stock. I also add in the juice of one lemon and a little bit of olive oil. Are there any other ingredients or different ratios I should play around with, or keep it as it is and not overthink it?
>>21952963My grandma always toasted it beforehand, so I have always done it that way. Just a little olive oil and just keep moving the pan around for like 3-4 min
>cooking it in chicken stockThat's instant couscous. Yeah, that's pretty much the only thing to do: cook it in something other than water.For proper couscous, berkoukes or tlitli, which are all steamed, there's more to it but for instant, cooking in stock is fine.
>>21952963Do you mean making couscous from scratch or from instant couscous. Instant couscous is easy as shit. Just boil any both and some butter and stir in the couscous. It's done in ~5 minutes.I've never made "proper" couscous from semolina.
>>21952975>>21952974In all honesty, I didn't know there was anything other than what you guys call instant couscous. What's the traditional or good way to do it?
>>21952978It's pretty labor intensive. Essentially you moisten semolina, then manually loosen it until you get uniform grains. Not really worth the effort, imo.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBL9aO16MBE
>>21952982And then steam the grains after and serve it with a sauce. >>21952978Haven't watched the video the other guy posted but I'm sure it's exactly the same method I watched my old housekeeper do to make couscous. I disagree that it's not worth the effort because most instant tastes like ass (at least the flavoured stuff, anyway).She used to buy Tria brand instant and cook it in water spiked with a stock cube matching whatever meat was meant to accompany it.And she used this stuff called smen, which is fermented ghee. It tastes cheesy and surprisingly good. She used to make these garlicky meatballs called mtewem. They're, like, half garlic by weight. They're sweet, garlicky and with lots of paprika, cooked in tallow and with slivered almonds that she used as one possible topping.And the fish! She used to make this fish couscous that was basically bouillabaisse without the ruille and it was delicious. Honestly? I mostly hate MENA food, but that fish couscous and those garlicky meatballs are fantastic. The chicken with cinnamon, garlic and buttermilk can go suck a shit, though.
>>21952982>>21952990The instant couscous that we can buy - is it basically the product of what the guy has made in that video? Does it just skip the manual labour?Or is it more akin to something like instant mashed potato where it's made of the same base ingredient, but processed in some ungodly way?>>21952990Smen sounds unique - never heard of it before. I live in the UK so it theoretically won't be too hard to find. Would you say Smen can be applied well to other cuisines and recipes, or is it a pretty niche taste that only works for MENA dishes? I don't really want to go hunt for something that I only use once a year or so.
>>21953012Instant couscous isn't "ungodly", it's just cooked and dried out again. The difference of the end result is textural if you're using Western-style instants. They're mushy. Proper couscous still has some bite to it, which is why it holds up to sauces and stews. Tria is pretty damn close to proper couscous. It's almost instant and has a much better texture. I think it's made in France so it you want to try it, you might not have much issue finding it locally.>Would you say Smen can be applied well to other cuisines and recipesWell now: my wife is Indian and after trying smen from our housekeeper, she loved it. She uses it in some dishes she cooks but not everything. I like it on boiled corn and mixed into the cooking water for rice and for popping popcorn. Besides proper smen, which can be extremely expensive, you can also buy smen stock cubes from Algeria. We get them from the Arab supermarket. As for finding either in Britain, I wouldn't imagine they'd be common. You haven't got a terrible large North African population there and it's not something used in the Middle East nearly as much as in North Africa. Even Egypt, which is culturally a borderland between ME/NA, doesn't use it much at all. afaik, it's almost exclusive to Algeria (although I think the housekeeper said it's also super common in Western Sahara) and it bleeds into the rest of the Maghreb but it's still not as common in, say, Morocco as it is in Algeria.Speaking of Indian wife: chunk/tadka. That's another way you can make your instant stuff taste nice. Heat up some oil or ghee, bloom spices and herbs in it briefly then pour it over the cooked couscous and stir it in as you fluff.Here's an explanation of what chunk is: https://www.youtu.be/fYJxerla_zw
Just don't boil it, you should steam it.
Hate to eat this plain. I add eggplant, raisins, onion, bell pepper, garlic and ras el hanout spices.
Anons, don't put semen in your couscous.
>>21952963Couscous + salted water in a mirowave oven.wallah.
>>21952990I'll pass on the semen-flavored couscous, thx
>>21953382You will eat your cum pasta and you will LIKE it.
