Cous-cous de l'étudiant
This blog entry is to demonstrate to my vast audience of two people that I do not in fact live on cookies, cake and brownies. But let's face it, those are far more fun to photograph and eat so that's usually what I remember to put into the blog. In the interest of appearing more healthy than I normally am, I include this delightful recipe for Cous-Cous de l'étudiant, which is not, in fact, something that I came up with as a college student, but it is more inspired by my little cookbook entitled Cuisine de l'étudiant which I picked up in B.H.V. department store sometime in the 90's in Paris. The photographs, however, were clearly taken at some point in the early 80's and are extremely hilarious. The food was photographed with papers in the foreground, or maybe a binder or two - no computers/ordinateurs mind you - just to remind you that this is food for the student, and not the pathetic bachelor. Often the same background was used for two different dishes with one minor change. Maybe this was meant as a memory game to keep the student mind sharp? I just hope the food was not left lying around on a set somewhere, forlorn and fuzzy with mold for a decade. I think the book was part of a "How-to" Series: How-to Fly Fish, How-to Taxidermy, How-to Pole Dance.
The cover photo features a plate of macaroni mixed with brown bits and little green bits, and is comfortingly surrounded by pencil sharpeners and magic markers in elementary school colors. Something tells you that it's all going to be ok, as they haven't set the bar exactly high. Even my limited French vocabulary should be able to get me through macaroni hoops with a side dish of markers. I bought it for a grand sum of 32,30 francs, about $6 at the time. Number of times I've used it? Zero. Being able to read a recipe for making tuna salad in French and feel vaguely international? Priceless.
(actual photo from the recipe book)
In college I liked to relax before a big exam with two meals and a glass of wine. I would often sit down in front of a closed window shade with a photo of my special friend, Monique. We hadn't actually met yet, but I could tell from the picture she included in the frame that I bought from the campus bookstore that she thought I was pretty special too. We had that kind of bond. It was unspoken. You wouldn't understand, really.
To get to the actual recipe portion of this rambling commentary, cous-cous is crazy easy to make. First you must accept that it is a PASTA and not a grain. There is no such thing as a cous-cous bush, and if you dare argue with me I will beat you senseless with a meat tenderizer, occasionally pausing to read from the Rumsfield Handbook for the Righteous to explain that it is not actually torture if you disagree with my religious position on cous-cousology.
Measure out 1 cup of cous-cous into a nice serving bowl. Boil 1 cup of water or stock, then add to the cous-cous and stir. Cover with saran wrap or a plate and wait 5mins. You now have cooked cous-cous. Start by adding the flavourings first, then the chunky stuff. For this recipe I added sliced almonds, dried cranberries, chopped green onion, orange peel zest, orange sections, grated ginger and a splash of sesame oil. Stir, stir, stir and taste to check the seasonings and adjust where needed. Then I added some pre-cooked turkey breast from Whole Foods and some steamed snap peas, again from Whole Foods, not that it wouldn't be easy to do those from the freezer but I happened to be in Whole Paycheck today and it was easier. You now have dinner. The beauty part of this is that you can either eat it hot or cold, whatever you prefer.
Did I mention that I also made sweet potato soup out of left-over roasted sweet potatoes that I didn't use for the pies I made on Thanksgiving? I did. Dump left-over mashed yams in a soup pot or alternatively crack open a can of pumpkin pie filling which is mostly made out of butternut squash, btw, add chicken broth and heat over med flame. Purée if needed with a stick-blender. Season to taste. This time I went with mild curry powder, cumin, paprika, dash of cayenne pepper and sea salt. Feel free to go the onion powder/thyme/sage route instead or even I suppose cinnamon, brown sugar and marshmellows but that might be more of a dessert soup, something that should be limited to the under 9 set and achieved through vigorous stirring of ice cream and toppings really.
The whole thing took literally 15mins to make tops and it was pretty tasty, pretty looking and pretty healthy. I must say when I get it in gear I do a nice job of Monday night dinners. Maybe tomorrow night I'll whip up a Clafoutis Salé which sounds complex but in actuality is just a baked omelet. Maybe I'll just keep that part to myself and beg for compliments from John anyway.
This is Un bon cous-cous. What makes it masculin instead of feminine? Why the nuts of course. D'oh!
