Make a pearl/Israeli couscous salad instead
of rice salad. It pairs well with just about any
other ingredients. Photo by Travelling Light |
IST.

Chef Johnny Gnall has been experimenting with pearl couscous sent from Bob’s Red Mill, with delicious results. His report follows. If you have questions or suggestions for tips, email Chef Johnny.

When most people think of couscous (KOOS-koos), they think of Moroccan couscous: fluffy piles of semolina, their tiny grains not much larger than coarse cornmeal.

But pearl couscous (also called Israeli couscous) has been making its way onto more and more menus and supermarket shelves. The beautiful round beads (pearls) of semolina are most deserving of finding their way to your kitchen.

Pearl/Israeli couscous is larger and toothier than Moroccan couscous. (EDITOR’S NOTE: We prefer the term “pearl” to “Israeli” couscous. Pearl is an accurate description; “Israeli” seems to limit one’s thoughts of the ingredient to Israeli/Middle Eastern cuisine. You can use it to replace orzo or rice.)

The pearls have a pleasant, chewy texture when properly cooked, giving the couscous a real comfort food quality. Think of macaroni and cheese made with big, thick elbow noodles. That same type of enjoyable, al dente bite is so satisfying, and it’s something that you can’t get out of Moroccan couscous (though you’re probably not looking for it there anyway).

Bob’s Red Mill carries three varieties of pearl couscous: Natural, Tricolor and Whole Wheat.

HOW TO COOK & SERVE PEARL COUSCOUS

Pearl couscous substitutes seamlessly for rice or any grain. Cook pearl couscous like pasta: Bring salted water to a boil, using 1.5 times the amount of water as pasta (or cover the dry pasta by 2-3 inches). You can also use stock, or toss a bouillon cube into the water for extra flavor.

Cooking time will vary; test after five minutes. The pearls will absorb some water and should be both soft and chewy. (Remember, it will continue to cook when you remove it from the heat.)

From there, you can:

Add diced tomato, red onion, feta cheese and torn basil for a Greek-style salad; use cherry tomatoes, sundried tomatoes or roasted red pepper when tomatoes are out of season. Or use chopped pistachios, golden raisins and cubed roasted squash for a Moroccan-style salad in any season.

In fact, you can add just about any three ingredients to make a couscous salad. Try a vegetable, a nut or legume and an herb, tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper to taste, and a splash of acid—citrus juice or vinegar. Proteins are also welcome: cubes of chicken and tofu work especially well. The recipe in the photo at the top uses leftover corn and peas, a bit of oil and balsamic vinegar, and a garnish of grated Parmesan.

For the best presentation, cut or chop your ingredients into small pieces, so they look at home nestled within the pearl couscous.

Treat It Like Pasta

Top couscous with tomato sauce and shredded Parmesan to keep it simple. Or toss it with olive oil, herbs and vegetables for Pearl Couscous Primavera. If you want to indulge, make some Pearl Couscous Carbonara with egg, Parmesan and diced pancetta.

Go Full-On Comfort Food

Three words: Mac. And. Cheese. The chewiness of pearl couscous really is wonderful with a gooey cheese like Gruyère or mozzarella, and a topping of crispy breadcrumbs (try panko). The symphony of tastes and textures will have your lids dropping in pleasure.

Turn It Into Couscous Risotto

Start by toasting the pearl couscous in a pot over medium-high heat with a touch of olive oil. Then begin stirring liquid in, just as you would with risotto. You can use any liquid that suits you; water or stock with a little white wine are probably your best bets.

Take It Swimming

Once it’s cooked, drop pearl couscous directly into soups, stews and chilis. It provides a pleasant texture and adds body to the food.

To add some extra love, flavor the couscous cooking water with some of the vegetables or aromatics in the main dish. Just drop them into the pot with the couscous as it cooks. Carrots and onions impart a bit of sweetness, herbs add depth and flavor. Even a bone from whatever beast you may be stewing can be a nice touch to build the complexity of your couscous.

THE HISTORY OF COUSCOUS

Couscous is more than 1,000 years old. The Berbers, who lived along the northern (Mediterranean) coast of Africa, west of the Nile Valley (modern Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia—the Barbary Coast/Berber Coast), ate wheat as a staple grain. Over generations, they learned that by grinding the wheat and making couscous, it would keep for years—insurance against drought and famine. The result has long been a base for North African cooking.

Couscous is made from yellow granules of semolina, made from durum pasta wheat, which are precooked and then dried. The pearl grains are the original couscous. They were made by hand-rolling semolina grains on screens, with olive oil, water and salt, letting the small grains fall through, and rolling them again until a consistent size grain was formed. The grains are then coated with olive oil salt and sun-dried, giving them a toasty flavor when cooked. The name is derived from Bhe Berber seksu meaning well rolled, well formed and rounded.

The term can refer to the ingredient itself or a prepared dish. Like pasta or rice, couscous is versatile and has numerous preparations. It is simple to prepare: Just add boiling water and let it sit. It can be flavored with exotic spices or served plain. North African stews (tagines) are traditionally served over it.

Couscous is now widely available in most supermarkets. Keeping with food trends, specialty producers such as Bob’s Red Mill sell whole wheat couscous and tricolor in addition to the natural white pearls.
  

Funny Food, by Bill & Claire Wurtzel. © 2012
Welcome Enterprises, Inc.,
www.funnyfood.us.

In 1001 Arabian Nights, the cuckolded King Shahryar executes his faithless wife and proceeds to marry a new virgin every day, executing her the next morning before she has a chance to dishonor him.

Eventually his vizier (minister), whose task it is to provide the brides, cannot find any more virgins. His daughter Scheherazade (shuh-HAIR-uh-ZOD) volunteers and is wed to the king.

That night, the clever girl tells the king a fascinating tale, but does not finish the story. King Shahryar can’t execute her the next morning, since he wants to hear the end of it. The next evening, as soon as she finishes the tale, she begins a new story…and so it goes for 1,001 nights.

Three years and three children later, Queen Scheherazade has convinced her husband that she is his faithful wife. She keeps her head (and her three children—obviously more than storytelling went on). Hopefully they lived happily ever after.

Funny Food: Another Daily Fascination

Now it’s time to introduce another fascinating book, one which has very few words. But who needs words when the photographs tell the whole story?

Funny Food: 365 Fun, Healthy, Silly, Creative Breakfasts, will fascinate a spouse or family as much as Scheherazade’s tales—and they get to eat the “story.”

What fun to be married to an art director who plies his trade in the kitchen. For more than 50 years, Bill Wurtzel has taken everyday breakfast foods—bagels and other breads, cereal, cottage cheese, eggs, fruit, ham, pancakes, waffles and yogurt—and turned them into edible art for wife Claire and their daughters. There are animals, birds, cars, flowers, people, musical instruments, trees and more. Everything is nutritious and the designs turn old standbys into exciting food.

And you can do it, too.

It’s Really Easy

There’s a two-page tip list of how to make your own creations, and two spreads that show the four simple steps to make a head and a train. Otherwise, there are no on-the-page instructions. The majority of the designs are easy to recreate—most are so easy that anyone old enough to do an art project can assemble this food art.

In fact, the Wurtzels now give workshops for school children to promote healthy eating and fun. There’s a downloadable guide on the book’s website.

 
This is a wonderful book to inspire younger people to cook and a boost of creativity for experienced cooks who can see how to use fruits, vegetables and nuts to make everyday dishes shine.

Get your copy.

We can only hope that the Wurtzels are working on Funny Lunch.

Mascarpone is perhaps best known in the U.S. as the base of tiramisu. Yesterday, we used it to whip up some Lemon Mascarpone Tarts.

The Crave family’s recipe makes it easy, by using refrigerated sugar cookie dough instead of mixing up and rolling out pastry dough. It’s a great time-saving tip.

Lemon is one of those flavors that’s delicious in any season—a godsend in the winter during the drought of seasonal fruit, and refreshing on the hottest summer day.

In addition to the cookie dough, all you need are three ingredients: mascarpone, a jar of lemon curd and a garnish of fresh raspberries or blueberries.

This recipe yields 36 mini tarts. For more recipes, visit the CraveCheese.com.

LEMON MASCARPONE TARTS

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350° F. Slice cookie dough into discs 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Slice each disc in half. In a greased mini muffin tin, press pieces of cookie dough into each muffin space. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until golden in color. Set aside to cool completely.

2. Meanwhile, place lemon curd in a microwaveable dish and heat until spreadable. Whisk curd with mascarpone until light and airy.

3. To assemble tarts, use a small cookie scoop to fill each sugar cookie tart with lemon mascarpone filling. Top with a fresh raspberry.

ABOUT CRAVE BROTHERS

Not only do the Crave Brothers produce a family of award-winning artisan cheeses, they do it using 100% green power and practicing water conservation and recycling. In fact, as a carbon-negative company, they produce more power with their bio digester than they use for their dairy and cheese plant.

The Crave family farms 2,000 acres of rich land in south-central Wisconsin, growing soybeans, corn and alfalfa to use as nutritious feed for their Holstein cows. From the manure digester to water recovery, sustainability is top-of-mind on the farm. Every pound of cheese made by George Crave, a licensed cheese maker, is made with milk from the family’s herd. Crave Brothers Farmstead Cheese produces Mascarpone, Fresh Mozzarella, Les Frères® and Petit Frère® French-style cheeses, Farmer’s Rope® Part-Skim Mozzarella String Cheese and Oaxaca.
MORE MASCARPONE

Santé Pecans. Photo by Elvira Kalviste | THE
NIBBLE.

Santé Nuts sent us packages of snack nuts in nine varieties:

 
Even the savory flavors have a touch of sweetness. The nuts are gluten-free and certified kosher by Star-K.

The line was developed by necessity: Sara Tidhar was a single mom in need of an income. Her son urged her to sell the roasted, seasoned nuts she made for the family and she soon found herself with thousands of orders.

Santé, the French word for health, denotes a better-for-you snack. We really like the one-ounce, grab-and-go packages of nutritious nuts as a substitute for candy and cookie snacks. They’re all-natural, very crunchy and fresh-tasting, with just enough cane sugar to satisfy a sweet tooth.

Hand-roasted in small batches, the nuts are made with less oil (canola oil, a monounsaturated, healthy fat), as well. Try them with a fruity wine or beer.

Santé Nuts can be purchased on Amazon.com and on the company website, SanteNuts.com. One-ounce packages are $1.99, four-ounce packages are $5.99.
Toss Into Recipes

The nuts add interest to a salad—green salad, chicken salad, tuna salad, spinach-and-blue-cheese salad—sweet potato casserole, stuffing, whatever. Here are two lively salad recipes to try:

Become a sauce master: Here’s Part 3 of chef Johnny Gnall’s tutorial on the secondary sauces. Start at the beginning with:

 
If you have questions or suggestions for other tips, email Chef Johnny.

ESPAGNOLE SAUCE BECOMES DEMI-GLACE

Demi-glace (pronounced DEH-me GLAHS) is a rich brown sauce that is often served with beef, lamb and pork. The term comes from the French word glace, which means icing or glaze (among other things, including ice and ice cream); demi means half. Demi-glace is thicker and contains more gelatin than espagnole alone, so it has more body.

Marchand De Vin Sauce

A variation of demi-glace is sauce marchand de vin (marchand de vin is French for wine merchant), which, not surprisingly, includes wine.

 
You now have a sauce that is perfect for pretty much any meat you can cook up!

Beyond the myriad classic sauces that stem from espagnole sauce, I am always up for some boundary crossing between cuisines—otherwise known as fusion food. I am a big fan of taking this classic French sauce and bringing it down to Mexico.

Mole Sauce

By adding a little cocoa powder and very little chile powder to a quart of espagnole sauce, you turn it into variety of mole sauce.

 
This variation of mole is not precisely the traditional Mexican procedure, but nobody will be complaining.

My mom, who grew up in Mexico, serves her mole sauce with lamb chops and mashed potatoes.