most couscousic

Yesterday's meal was a redo of a meal we'd had a while back-- basically chicken and couscous, but spiced up. I don't have a recipe for you, but you can probably figure one out from the following description:

We minced some fresh parsley and green onion, and tossed that in a bowl with salt, pepper, dried basil, dried thyme, red pepper flakes, chopped dates, raisins, olive oil, and powdered garlic. Into the mix we added chunkily chopped chicken breast, then stirred the whole mess together, as if we were making a marinade. In the meantime, we boiled beef stock on the side. This was poured into a pot containing a mess of couscous, on which I had already drizzled some olive oil and added a large pat of butter. The couscous sat with the pot closed until we were ready to use it.

We also chopped some Italian tomatoes into chunks, and had a large pack of crumbled feta at the ready. The tomatoes were put into their own bowl.

The chicken mixture was cooked down until it had browned a bit (it was very liquidy at first). The couscous was fluffed with a fork and then layered into separate bowls. Chopped tomatoes were poured atop the couscous servings, covering half the surface area. The remaining area was covered with the chicken mixture, and feta cheese was sprinkled, to taste, on top of everything.

The result kicked ass. Mom pronounced the dish "sweet" thanks to the dates and raisins, but she cleaned her bowl. The only thing missing, in my opinion, was eggplant, which I'll be sure to add next time. All the same, the contrasts in taste (sweet, savory, spicy), texture (firm chicken mixture versus soft couscous), and temperature (hot chicken and couscous versus cold cheese and tomatoes) made for a very edible dish.

It was also simple and easy to prepare. The most time-consuming aspect of it was the chopping-- parsley, green onions, tomatoes, and those all-important chicken breasticles. The frying (we stuck a bit of olive oil and butter in the pan) took only a few minutes as we waited for the liquid to reduce and for the meat to brown a tad.

Give it a whirl. If you have fresh basil and thyme on hand, all the better. This is one of those dishes that's pretty hard to mess up if you have some sense of proportion regarding spices.


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