Difficulty 1/5
It’s been a while since I’ve been a cous cous fan. But to be honest, I had never cooked it before! So the last few weeks I’ve experimented on it, and I have to say that I just love the way it works around salad ingredients. It’s completely different from quinoa, which adds even more options for you. And in addition to all of this, it’s extremely easy to cook! You just pour boiling liquid on it (in this case water, but it could also be stock) and let it absorb it. Done! So easy. So here goes my version for a cous cous salad.
Portions: 2
Ingredients:
– 1 small courgette (around 100g)
– 50ml olive oil
– 100g cherry tomato
– 50g baby spinach
– 100g cous cous
– Zest from one lemon
– 20g parmesan
– 30g pine nuts or walnuts, roasted
For the vinaigrette:
– 1/2 tsp dijon mustard
– juice 50ml lemon juice
– 100ml olive oil
– salt and pepper to taste
Procedure:
1. Since we want the zucchini to cool down after cooking for our salad, we’ll start with this. Cut in slices and bake in olive oil in the oven, with salt and pepper, at 180C until starting to go golden and completely soft.
2. While they are in the oven, boil water and cover the cous cous with it, it should be about half a cm above the level of cous cous. Leave it to absorb completely (takes about 3min), and then fluff using a fork.
3. Cut parmesan in thin slices. You can also grate it, but I prefer it this way. Also, if your pine nuts or walnuts don’t come roasted, do so in the pan or in the oven.
4. Mix all ingredients in a bowl so they’re nicely mixed. The lemon zest goes amazing with cous cous! But it’s ideal to do it with a really fine grater or microplane. The cherry tomatoes I cut in half and also removed the excess oil from the zucchini with kitchen paper.
5. For the vinaigrette, mix all the ingredients with a whisk. The mustard helps it come together and not split. Serve it on the side so you guarantee your leaves are nice and crunchy when you eat them, because if you add it too early, they go soggy.
Done! See how easy it is? You can cook the zucchini and cous cous the night before and then mix everything the next day and pack your lunch for work. You can even hace cooked cous cous in the fridge for a couple of days and it works as fine. I hope you liked it 🙂
