Salad Days! Couscous With Tomatoes and Herbs

Salad Days! Couscous With Tomatoes and Herbs

 

Salad Days!

No. Not the Shakespearean kind of salad days full of reminiscences and regrets. You remember— Cleopatra lamenting her youthful indiscretions.

“My salad days,
When I was green in judgment: cold in blood,
To say as I said then! ”

Instead, these salad days are the too-hot-to-cook summer days when salad recipes beckon. (More prosaic, I know.)

This is a full-flavored and beautifully-presentable couscous and cherry tomato salad. It would make a stunning addition to your next buffet table.

No Shakespearean tragedy here.

 

 

Salad Days! Couscous With Tomatoes and Herbs
Save RecipeSave Recipe

Ingredients

  • 1 1/3 C. Pearl (Israeli) couscous (I used Trader Joe's brand)
  • 5 T. olive oil
  • 1-2 t. ras el hanout (optional)
  • Salt and black pepper
  • 1 3/4 C. boiling water
  • 10 oz. cherry tomatoes
  • 1-2 onions (sliced thin and then roughly chopped)
  • 1/4 C. golden raisins
  • 1 t. cumin seeds (toasted and then crushed)
  • 1/3 C. whole almonds (roasted, salted and roughly chopped)
  • 1/4 C. fresh cilantro (roughly chopped)
  • 1/8 to 1/4 C. fresh mint (roughly torn)
  • 1 lemon (zested for 1 t. zest and juiced for 1 T. juice)

Instructions

  1. Toast pearl couscous in a saucepan with 1 T. olive oil over moderate heat until couscous is lightly browned. This will take about 5 minutes. Slowly add 1 3/4 C. boiling water to the pan. Reduce heat to medium and cover. Simmer for 12 minutes or until liquid is absorbed. Set aside.
  2. In a medium frying pan, fry cherry tomatoes in 1 T. olive oil. This will take 3-4 minutes. Stir the tomatoes a few times as you fry them. (I found that there was a lot of splatter, so I covered the pan with a see-through glass lid.) When the tomatoes start to brown and split open, remove from the heat and set aside. Sprinkle a pinch of salt over the tomatoes.
  3. Using the same pan (wiped clean), heat 3 T. olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the sliced/chopped onions, ras el hanout (if using), 1/8 t. salt. Fry for 10-12 minutes until the onions are golden brown and soft. Remove from heat. Stir in golden raisins and set aside.
  4. Put cooled couscous in a large bowl and stir in onion/raisin mixture. Add cumin, almonds, cilantro, mint (to your taste), lemon zest, lemon juice, 1/4 t. salt and freshly-ground pepper to your taste.
  5. Spoon couscous mixture onto a platter and top with cherry tomatoes. Garnish with fresh mint or cilantro.
  6. Cook's Note: The use of ras el hanout is optional in this recipe. Ras el hanout is a North African spice. Roughly translated, the term means "head of the shop" and refers to a ground mixture of the best spices available--usually cardamon, cumin, clove, cinnamon, nutmegm mace and on and on.

Nutrition

Calories

3265 cal

Fat

206 g

Carbs

324 g

Protein

95 g
Click Here For Full Nutrition, Exchanges, and My Plate Info
7.8.1.2
202
https://bluecayenne.com/salad-days-couscous-with-tomatoes-and-herbs

This recipe was adapted from one that appears in Yotam Ottolenghi’s cookbook Ottolenghi Simple. You can buy the book here.


Related Posts

¡Tamales!

Do you have a bucket list? Mine is a culinary bucket list and my list is extensive. So… the good news for me is that I can’t, as they say, lay down my knife and fork for a very long time. My list, as you might […]

Binge Cooking Chocolate-Dipped Coconut Macaroons

  Uh-oh!  I’m in a dangerous place. I’m binge cooking cookies. Fortunately, I have neighbors who are willing to humor me and take some of my cookie glut off my hands. I recently posted a chocolate cookie recipe from Dorie Greenspan’s new book, Dorie’s Cookies. Now […]



Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *