Couscous Salad Recipe

Fancy a yummy couscous salad that can be adapted easily depending on wat you have in the fridge? I stumbled across this recipe by mistake and was pretty pleased with what I came up with - my friends agree.

Great for barbeques and parties, this is something that you can take along anytime.

Tabouleh

One evening, I was attempting to create a middle eastern style tabouleh to go with some slow roasted lamb and some yummy yoghurt sauces I had made. Tabouleh calls for bulgur wheat, which isn't available at most supermarkets (if you feel like a laugh try asking the spotty grocery boy to find you some bulgur wheat). On a deadline, I decided to go with couscous instead of the bulgur wheat and it turned out perfectly.

Adapt, evolve

Another time I made the same recipe, but we were almost out of couscous and had some tomatoes that needed to be used. I swapped out some couscous for some more tomatoes, and it tasted perfect.

I made this recipe a few more times, and when I moved to Ireland I was shocked at how expensive parsley was - I didn't feel like spending the equivalent of $20 on parsley just to make one dish. So, I made the recipe with only one small bunch of parsley. Tasted perfect.

The image shown here is using a lot less parsley than I would normally use (parsley isn't cheap in London either), and the tomatoes weren't as great as normal so the salad is quite couscous-heavy. I added some roasted sunflower seeds and flaxseed as well - I like the extra crunch that the nuts give.

Ingredients

The quantities are flexible. Feel free to experiment.

• 1 - 3 large bunches of parsley (flat or plain)
• 1 cup couscous
• 1 Tablespoon of butter (optional, stir into the couscous)
• 6 ripe tomatoes
• 1-2 red onions
• 2-6 cloves garlic
• Juice of 2 lemons
• Approx 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• Salt and pepper
• Optional - roast nuts or seeds

Mix

Start by cooking the couscous according to pack directions and leave to cool. Season the couscous with salt and pepper. Don't mix the salad ingredients into the couscous until it has cooled, otherwise it will wilt the parsley.

If you are using them, roast the nuts/seeds in the oven with a little oil for about 10 minutes. Pine nuts and cashews work particularly well, but pumpkin and sunflower seeds are a cheaper way to go.

This salad comes out extra-special when the ingredients are super-finely chopped. Make sure you have a sharp knife for this. Finely chop the tomatoes, onions, garlic, parsley.

Mix everything together and add stir through the olive oil and lemon juice. Add the lemon juice slowly and taste as you go, just to make sure it isn't too acidic or bitter.

Also...

This salad refrigerates well - I have kept for 3-4 days, but it always gets eaten before then. It also works really well as filling for bread rolls, wraps and sandwiches. You can also add a little vegetable stock to the couscous which adds to the flavour nicely, or consider using one of those pre-flavoured sachets of couscous.

Enjoy.

Tags: salad recipes couscous

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