The Ultimate Winter Couscous

I am not feeling so well today. I ran out of my meds a few days ago, which resulted in a couple of days without sleeping, which I suspect snookered my immune system. Meds are resolved now and the 18 hours of sleep I got yesterday was both glorious and required; however, this sore throat and congestion appears to be here to stay a while. I handle being sick much differently now that I live alone compared to when I lived with a partner - there's no one here to baby me, so I either baby myself or suck it up and keep on keepin' on. Today has definitely been the latter kind of day - I am being surprisingly productive given how lousy I feel.

Part of this morning involved finding the list of recipes I had intended to make from Plenty this month and realizing that I have fallen short of my goal. I had made six of my pre-planned eleven culinary adventures. For about a half an hour I got really down on myself for failing at this self-imposed task, and then some switch tripped in my brain and I realized that a) the month isn't quite over yet and b) this project is not going to lead to global devastation if it isn't perfectly complete. This is supposed to be fun. So I reviewed the recipes I had left, selected one for which I had most of the ingredients, and started cooking. I focused on enjoying myself rather than being a taskmaster, and ended up having a really good time. Something tells me this is a meta-lesson for life that I am being a bit dense about learning. ^_^

The title of the recipe is Yotam's, not mine. At first I was a little skeptical about calling something "The Ultimate", but I think this could be worthy of the name. It's quite delicious. A little on the spicy side, and that was after omitting the harissa I have yet to track down, but the heat was a great compliment to the sweetness of the roasted veggies. I would definitely make this again. As usual, the ingredients are as listed in the book and the recipe description includes my observations and alterations.

The Ultimate Winter Couscous
(p. 262, Plenty)

Serves 4, or even more

2 medium carrots, peeled and cut into 3/4-inch chunks
2 medium parsnips, peeled and cut into 3/4-inch chunks
8 shallots, peeled
2 cinnamon sticks
4 star anise
3 bay leaves
5 tbsp olive oil
salt
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground turmeric
1/4 tsp hot paprika
1/4 tsp chile flakes
2 1/2 cups cubed pumpkin or butternut squash
1/2 cup dried apricots, roughly chopped
1 cup chickpeas (canned or freshly cooked)
1 1/2 cups chickpea cooking liquid and/or water
1 cup couscous
large pinch of saffron
1 cup boiling vegetable stock
3 tbsp butter, broken into pieces
2 tbsp harissa
1 oz preserved lemon, finely chopped
2 cups cilantro

Assemble ingredients!

A few omissions and substitutions to start: I could not find shallots, and therefore substituted half an onion cut up into chunks. I think in hindsight I'd use the whole onion as it wouldn't change the balance of the dish and then I wouldn't end up with half an onion waiting forlornly in the fridge for me to remember to do something with it in the future. I omitted the star anise because a) it proved difficult to find and b) I don't much care for things that taste like black liquorice, which I find it does. I used a larger grain of couscous called Jerusalem couscous as it was what I had on hand - this necessitated a slightly different cooking arrangement than what was called for in the recipe, but that was okay. I found I could omit the butter as the couscous tasted quite rich to me by the time it was done cooking, but that might be a factor of the alternate couscous, I can't rightly say. I omitted the harissa as I have yet to find any, and also omitted the preserved lemon as I wasn't able to get the jar open. I had cilantro but discovered it had gone off in spectacular style since I bought it and so omitted that as well.

Preheat the oven to 375F. Place the chopped carrots, parsnips, and shallots in a large ovenproof dish.

Add the cinnamon sticks, bay leaves, 4 tablespoons of the oil, 3/4 teaspoon salt, and all of the other spices, and mix well.

Place in the oven and cook for 15 minutes.

Add the pumpkin or butternut squash and continue cooking for about 35 minutes.

While the veggies are roasting, roughly chop the apricots, portion out the chickpeas, and if you feel like getting ahead of the game, measure the couscous into a heatproof bowl, add the saffron, the remaining tablespoon of the oil, and 1/2 teaspoon salt to the couscous.

About 15 minutes before the vegetables are ready, pour the boiling stock over the couscous. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap (or use a pot lid or a plate if that works for you), and leave to sit for about 10 minutes.

While the couscous sits, after the 35 minute roasting period for the vegetables has elapsed, add the apricots, chickpeas, and their cooking liquid/water to the roasting pan in the oven, and bake for another 10 minutes or until hot.

I found the 1 1/2 cups cooking liquid to be quite a bit; I think I'd take it down to a cup in the future. Enough to deglaze the pan and plump the apricots without turning everything soupy.

Once the couscous has finished sitting and absorbing all of the stock, fluff it with a fork and add the butter if using. Continue to fluff the couscous until the butter melts in. Cover again and leave somewhere warm.

Once the contents of the baking pan are tender, remove them from the oven. To serve, spoon some couscous into a deep plate or bowl. Stir the harissa and chopped preserved lemon into the vegetables if using; taste and add salt if necessary (I didn't find any to be required). Spoon the vegetables into the centre of the couscous and finish with plenty of cilantro leaves, if using.

I think the cilantro would probably be a nice addition, at the least to add some colour contrast to the dish. I prefer the larger couscous because it feels like I am actually eating something (for some reasons grains smaller than rice only make sense to me as ingredients in puddings, so fine-grained couscous is peculiar to me...). I think you could easily sub out the couscous for quinoa if you wanted to make the dish gluten free. I think I'd like to include the preserved lemon in a future incarnation of this dish - if it tastes the way I imagine it would, that would be lovely. The harissa would jump the heat a bit, which would also be fine, if that works for you. As I made it, the dish is warm, but certainly not hot in terms of spiciness.

All in all, this is pretty tasty.