04 August 2020

Couscous à la volaille

On Saturday morning I went shopping at the fairly new and very big produce market in Saint-Aignan called Terre Y Fruits. It's not clear to me what the name means, but it is clear that the produce sold in the store is excellent. I hadn't been inside the shop or even at the open-air market in Saint-Aignan since February or March, and I went kind of crazy. Look at what I brought home — a load of local produce.


I had an idea, and the idea was to make couscous. So I was looking for aubergines (eggplant), tomatoes, celery, and turnips. We already had zucchini (courgettes) from this year's vegetable garden, and some carrots in the fridge. I also wanted lettuce, melons, shallots, and mushrooms. I let myself be tempted by a beautiful head of cauliflower, and now I have to figure out what to do with it. I'm thinking about oven-roasted cauliflower florets dressed with radish leaf pesto...


Above is the couscous as we had it for lunch yesterday. From the bottom right, going counterclockwise: The couscous vegetables cooked with spices in broth. The steamed couscous "grain" (a tiny pasta, actually) with re-hydrated raisins. A bowl of chickpeas (from a can) flavored with the couscous broth. And two meats that Walt cooked on the barbecue grill — turkey wings and chicken sausages flavored with merguez spices. The meats are why I call this a coucous à la volaille — couscous with poultry. (Often it also includes lamb...)


The vegetables cooked in the broth are carrots, turnips, eggplant, zucchini, green beans, tomatoes, onions, garlic, and artichoke hearts. The chickpeas are a garnish. The spices in the broth are the North African blend called ras el hanout — cumin, tumeric, paprika, cinnamon, fenugreek, fennel, curry, coriander seed, carraway, etc., all in powdered form.


Our local poultry processor and vendor makes very nice sausages with chicken, turkey, or duck, spiced with the couscous spices or just with piment d'espelette from Basque country, or just with onions and herbs. The turkey wings are now available at Super U, the Saint-Aignan supermarket.


Finally, here's the couscous as we ate a plate of it at lunchtime yesterday. It's served with a little bit of hot-pepper paste called harissa, which you mix with some warm broth in a ladle and drizzle over the vegetables and meats. There's a recipe in this post from 2014. Bon appétit  !

14 comments:

  1. This looks magnificent. No wonder you bought so much great looking produce. What a wonderful meal!

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  2. As someone who almost craves raw vegetables, I'd have worked my way through a good part of that beautiful cauliflower while you contemplated how to cook it. That couscous looks marvelous.

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    1. I ate a few florets of the cauliflower yesterday when I was cutting it up. It was delicious. But I went ahead and steamed it. We might eat it or at least some of it for lunch today, or tomorrow.

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  3. Back again. Have you been able to get in touch with your sister? Probably not from the sound of the news. Let's hope all is well.

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    1. I got an e-mail from my sister in N.C. this morning. She says there was only minor damage to trees there, and she and the rest of the family are fine.

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  4. Wow, what a bounty from the Terre Y Fruits market. And, of course, marvelous job on that Couscous.

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  5. I made pickled cauliflower following the instructions of Sara on Living Traditions Homestead on YouTube. Next time I will not use any apple cider vinegar because I'm put off by the discoloration of the cauliflower. Other than that, it's quite good.

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    1. Would you use white wine vinegar instead? I steamed the cauliflower and I'm thinking about having it hot with pesto or cold with a home-made mayonnaise. Or a little of each.

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    2. Yes, next time, white wine vinegar.

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  6. Oh my, great looking produce and a delicious looking lunch! We had lamb with all those North African spices the other day and it’s such a wonderful flavor combination of spices, isn’t it?

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    1. Yes, it's a great combination of spices, and it's good with chicken or lamb or veal.

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    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  7. With a chef in the house like you, Ken, who needs restaurants???
    Fabulous repas!

    Mary in Oregon

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    1. Walt and I hardly go to restaurants any more. It's more fun to shop for good food and then cook at home. And you end up having food that's at least as good as what you get in a restaurant for a lot less money.

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