Greener Pastures

So I'm still in the throes of a non-cooking kind of cooking,. I'd make excuses, but it's oppressive here in the midlands, and I work in a polyester uniform so I am really feeling it. I have noticed since becoming vegetarian, that summer cooking is both easier and harder. You can't rely, any longer, on one centerpiece, say, a poached salmon or roast chicken, and quickly prepared, raw-or-almost-raw accompaniments to make a meal. You can, however, get dinner on the table far quicker, as vegetables tend to respond better than most meats to a preparation that is almost nil. I have been almost exclusively living on cute little yellow courgettes from my garden, grilled, fried, shaved raw into a lemon and herb dressing; chucked into pasta, quinoa or couscous. This is part laziness, part response to a glut, and part because it's really all I want to eat. I mean, I'm running around like a headless chicken behind a bar, cycling to get everywhere, and digging myself exhausted in the garden; the very last thing I need is food that weighs on me like a rock.

However, sometimes, surprisingly, I run out of courgettes. So I've been finding other, fussless recipes for something light but satisfying, and have reverted back to my student habit of big-batching bowfuls of the stuff and keeping it in the fridge for whenever I feel like grabbing a plateful. It's a kind of cooking and eating that satisfies my internal unstructured forager instincts, without me resorting to standing in front of the fridge repeatedly eating the odd bit of cheese, or olives, or whatever, and ignoring dinner (if left to my own devices long enough this is exactly the kind of behaviour I consider to be normal, and don't even act like you don't do it too).

Now that Ottolenghi and I are buds again, I've been hitting his cookbook up regularly. There are Plenty (you don't have to think I'm funny, but it helps) of recipes of his that use bunch after bunch of summer produce, to the point where I feel like I'm racing against the calendar to try as many as possible before the weather starts to turn and I find myself back in the season for funghi, winter squash, and roots. This one perfectly fits my current 'why make the kitchen hotter than it has to be?' mood, and might just be the best looking and tasting couscous I have ever eaten:

Green Couscous

150g couscous
160ml boiling water or vegetable stock
1 small onion, thinly sliced
1 tbsp olive oil
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground cumin
50g shelled unsalted pistachios, toasted and roughly chopped
3 spring onions, finely sliced
30g rocket, chopped

Herb Paste
20g parsley
20g coriander
2 tbsp chopped tarragon
2 tbsp chopped dill
2 tbsp chopped mint
90ml olive oil

Place the couscous in a large bowl and cover with the boiling water or stock. Cover the bowl with cling film and leave for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, fry the onion in the olive oil on a medium heat until golden and completely soft. add the salt and cumin and mix well. Leave to cool slightly.

Next, make the herb paste by placing all the ingredients into a food processor and blitzing until smooth. Here's a picture of mine, whipped up in a measuring jug with my trusty stick blender:


One of the things I love most about Ottolenghi's recipe's are the use of colour-who could fail to smile at creating something such a deep, froggy, fresh-cut-grass green?

Add this to the couscous and mix everything together with a fork to fluff it up. Now add the cooked onion, the pistachios, spring onions, green chilli and rocket, and gently mix. serve at room temperature.

Here we have it:


Again, I totally love the use of colour; I really think the single-focus devotion to green is something to admire. This was ace eaten by the bowlful with a little bit of feta crumbled on top as a whole meal, but i think it would also totally work as a side dish for little burek or spanakopita, or any number of the Small Fried Things I like to cook on a regular basis. The flavour of the herbs and greenery in this dish is strong, almost medicinal, but in a good way, and totally enhanced by the pep of rocket, so I think it would make the ideal foil for cutting through salty foods, hence the feta. Another great point to note about this dish is it perfectly matched the grassy, slightly acidic New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc that I seem to be drinking by the bucketload this summer. I thought it would be an okay bedfellow but it's turned out to be a match of marriage material proportions. And anything that's an excuse to crack open a bottle is a keeper in my book.