Friday, April 06, 2007

Tessa's Couscous
















I must be the last person on Earth to finally get my hands on "Falling Cloudberries". The book came in earlier this week and what a book it is! I am a visual person, so I was delighted to find so many bright, colorful pictures, and the food! It's one of those books where you can just imagine what the food will taste like by reading the list of ingredients. I was also thrilled with the section on South Africa, mainly because of the research I am currently working on. Yesterday though, I made my first recipe, the couscous salad. Absolutely gorgeous. Light and full of flavor! I had some for dinner as well and guess what? There's leftovers which I'll have for lunch...again!



Here's the recipe, which serves six. I've moderated it a bit. She uses oven-roasted tomatoes but I just used a jar of high quality sun-dried tomatoes. I left out the olive oil and just used a bit of the oil from the tomatoes. I also replaced the mint with coriander and served it with extra lemon wedges. A glass of chilled white wine on the side wouldn't hurt either.

Ingredients:

350g couscous
200g sun-dried tomatoes (halved or quartered if large, and their oil)
1 Lebanese cucumber, peeled and diced (I just used a normal one)
4 spring onions chopped
25g chopped mint leaves (I used coriander, ran out of mint!)
3 tbsps lemon juice
120g goat's cheese, cubed or crumbled

Instructions:

Put couscous in a large bowl and season well with s&p. Add splash of
oil from the sun-dried tomatoes and 500ml just boiled water. Stir,
cover and leave to cool completely, fluffing it up gently now and
then. Add cucumber, spring onions, mint or coriander and lemon juice.
Add tomatoes and some more of their oil and stir through well. Add
the goat´s cheese and stir through carefully. Serve with lemon wedges.


Enjoy!

5 comments:

Anna's kitchen table said...

Oooh, that looks so summery!

:-)

Kelly-Jane said...

That does look great! I must dig FC out again, I tend to think of it as a summer book, though not sure why!

KJxx

Anonymous said...

Paola, I'm sorry you left, but I understand. Now I'll have to visit your blog regularly to keep up with your culinary adventures.

Paola Westbeek said...

Thanks Anna, KJ and Mira! Anna it is indeed a summery dish. So light and fresh! KJ, I agree. The book looks very much fit for the warmer months. Btw, I made the olive oil bread and it was delish. I added some extra herbs with the tomatoes and it was honestly one of the best breads I've ever had! I'll write about it later.

Mira, I am so glad you stopped by. I was kicking myself when I left and didn't get your email address. I was about to ask a girl whom I keep in touch with to get it for me. Maybe you can mail it to me sometime. But hey, now worries! My time there was well spent! I met some lovely people (you included!) and I inspired a few as well. That makes me quite happy. :)

paola

Mara said...

Good for you getting FC!R It's such a gorgeous book, and I agree with Kelly-Jane, it's time to dig it out, all these recipes will come very handy in such good weather we're having now :)