6 December 2018
This week we’ll be making our take on couscous, that staple of North African cooking. Our version uses fine bulgur wheat in place of the more usual durum wheat semolina base as bulgur wheat is easier to find on the supermarket shelves where we are based.
In our opinion, bulgur works just as well as semolina as a base to soak up the juices from the roasted vegetables and our chickpea chutney. Purists may disagree, but our philosophy is more about adapting recipes by using the ingredients you have at hand.
Ingredients (serves 2)
Roasted vegetables:
- 300 g pumpkin
- 2 medium carrots
- 2 medium courgettes
- 25 ml olive oil
- 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
- 1 cinnamon stick
Chickpea chutney:
- 25 ml olive oil
- 1 teaspoon mustard seeds
- 1 small red onion
- 2 small tomatoes
- 50 g currants
- 250 g chickpeas
- 1 teaspoon red chilli flakes
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
Couscous:
- 100 g fine bulgur wheat
- 200 ml vegetable stock
Method
Pre-heat the oven to 200c, cut the vegetables into large chunks and put into a baking dish, drizzle with olive oil and add the cumin seeds and cinnamon stick and stir to coat the vegetable chunks. Roast for 30-40 minutes until the vegetables are cooked.
While the vegetables are roasting, prepare the chickpea chutney. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan and add the mustard seeds. When they start to pop, add the finely chopped onion and cook over a low heat for five minutes. Add the spices and the chopped tomato and cook for five more minutes. Then add the currants and chickpeas and cook for fifteen minutes or so.
Bring the vegetable stock to the boil and then cover the bulgur wheat with it and leave it to soak up the liquid for 30 minutes or so, drain off the excess liquid (if there’s any) and than add a dash of olive oil and fluff up with a fork.
Put a layer of couscous on a warmed plate, arrange the roasted vegetables in a circular, wheel-spoke pattern and put a generous dollop of chickpea chutney in the centre and serve immediately.
Knidos Cookery Club 