Couscous Salad / Pilaf

Couscous - the national dish of North Africa, is a wheat based product made out of semolina of hard wheat using water to bind them. When using couscous for cooking it's a two part process....first part which is most time consuming  is forming the couscous (click here to read the process), which is rarely done anymore. You can easily buy instant couscous(ready to cook) in most of the grocery stores, I in fact bought my first pack from my local Indian grocery stores(it came without any instructions to prepare). Second part is cooking it which is a simple process, how simple if you ask me ? So, the answer is as simple as boiling the water, and I mean literally. On the name of cooking U only need to boil water.

I've been making this since past one year. I won't say it's a family favourite(given a choice between rice & couscous, my family will choose rice only & 4th grader will specify white rice only please, if not I'll take couscous :) ) but if I make it once or twice a month everybody enjoys it & also it doesn't take long to get it ready, so it's a time saver recipe.

Nutrition wise Couscous is among the healthiest grain-based products. It has a glycemic load per gram 25% below that of pasta. It has a superior vitamin profile to pasta, containing twice as much riboflavin, niacin, vitamin B6, and folate, and containing four times as much thiamine and pantothenic acid. In terms of protein, couscous has 3.6 g for every 100 calories, equivalent to pasta, and well above the 2.6 g for every 100 calories of white rice. Source : Wiki

Today's recipe is merely a guideline. U can add what ever flavours U like  or make it plain & use it with any kind of curry based dish. I have been normally serving it with any kind of fish I make dry or gravy based but last time I served it with pork chops & it was a hit. We love ours with lots of veggies & nuts in it as it give it a little crunch as otherwise the texture is little too soft  for our taste buds.

What I used :

• 1 cup Instant Couscous (now a days I'm using Near East brand & I like it's texture)
• salt
• black pepper
• 1 tsp. finely chopped garlic
• 1 large tomato
• 1 small onion
• 1 cucumber
• 1 carrot
• half red bell pepper
• 1-2 stalk of celery
• 1-2 green chillies
• handful or more of your favourite nut(I like peanuts, pistachio or cashews in it....chop them if u like)
• juice of half a lime
• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• water 1&1/2 cup *see Notes

Notes : Usually ratio of couscous & water is 1 : 1&1/2 . Using more water can make it mushy/soggy.

What I did :

1. Take a flat kind of dish. I use square Pyrex dish with lid(avoid using deep pot/pan). Pour the dry couscous on it.
2. Boil the water, once it's boiled take it of the heat add oil,salt, black pepper & lime juice. Pour it on the couscous, cover it & let it rest for 5 minutes.
3. In the meantime finely chop/dice all the veggies.
4. After 5 minutes are over, take the lid off & fluff the couscous with a fork.
5. Add all chopped up veggies and nuts to it & gently mix it., taste & adjust the seasoning if needed.
6. Serve it as is or as a part of a meal.

If you add a little more protein to it in addition to nuts, it will be a good lunchbox item and can be prepared a night before.

Lentil Salad

This is one of our favourite salad. Specially dear hubby likes it for lunch in the office. It's quite filling also because the main ingredient is lentils.Though I'm writing the ingredients which I normally use but then agian no restrictions, I always put whatever I have in hand for e.g celery, parsnip, red bell pepper, basically any kind of veg. which you would use in normal salad.

Ingredients :

1. 2 cups of cooked(boiled)* Lentils( I used Red Chorry available at Indian Grocery Stores)
2. 1/2 small onion
3. 1 Large tomato
4. 2 carrots
5. 1/2 cup salad greens of your choice
6. 1 small cucumber
7. green chillies as per taste
8. 1/2 bunch of cilantro
9. handful of raisns
10. handful of toasted nuts of your choice
11. salt as per taste
12. black pepper as per taste
13. juice of 1 lime

Method :

1) Finely chop all the Salad vegetables including green chillies (this is little time consuming, so I usually chop everything a night before & then assemble the salad hour or two before the lunch time).

2) In a big bowl mix drained lentils, chopped veggies, raisins, cilantro, salt, black pepper & lime juice and gently mix up everything.Keep it in the fridge.

3) When ready to eat take it out add roasted chopped nuts mix them well & one healthy lunch is ready. We usually eat it as a lunch but you can have it as a side salad in full meal.

Note : * For boiling the lentils for salad purpose don't use too much of water just enough water to cover them plus one extra cup, and then pressure cook them. Little salt & a bay leaf while boiling enhance the flavours.Water left after draining the boiled lentils can be used to make dough for the chapatis.

Variations : This salad also tastes good with black eye beans or chickpeas.

While we gonna enjoy this colorful & tasty salad today for lunch, I would like to send the same to My Legume Love Affair : the 16th helping event hosted this month by jeanne of CookSister.com, event created and administered by the lovely Susan of The Well-Seasoned Cook. Also sending this entry to No Croutons Required event, hosted by Jacqueline.