Taboulè di Verdure – Vegetables cous cous
Summer is coming and people look forward to leaving behind the consistent winter dishes like soups and get in with the freshness of grilled vegetables and season herbs like mint and basil. In this situation the cous cous is definetely the right Sicilian dish.
Inherited by the Arabs and re-invented by the sailors that were cooking it with the soup putting fish that could not sell, it’s a dish based on poor elements: hard wheat semolina, vegetables, and in the famous version of the soup the typical fish like rockfish or mullet or any other suitable for soups.
The globalization and the review of traditional dishes created new versions, sometimes lighter and even sweet. This is the classic recipe of the Taboulè, also called cous cous salads; you must use the pre-cooked semolina, if you don’t have experience of preparing the cous cous in the traditional ways with the appropriate instruments and pans for cooking it.
If you put the semolina directly inside the juice obtained by the sweet peppers and tomatoes the dish will be tastier. Grilled vegetables and fresh herbs will do the rest: you just have to try!
RECIPE
500g Precooked semolina
1,5Kg Ripe tomatoes 5 red and yellow sweet peppers
2 Aubergine or eggplants
2 cougettes or zucchini
Capers as you like
2 cloves of garlic
salt
pepper
olive oil
water
mint
basil
Grill the eggplants, the zucchini and all the sweet peppers. In the latter you have to remove the external skin once they are cooked. Peel the tomatoes and remove the seeds from the inside. In a blunder put some of the peppers, all the tomatoes, garlic, fresh mint and basil. Mix all together, adding olive oil and adjusting with salt and pepper. The liquid must be at a volume of 500 ml with the water.
Put the semolina in a large bowl that you can place later in the fridge, but first wet it with the obtained mix, add the grilled vegetables cut in small pieces and the capers rinsed to eliminate the salt. Cover with cellophane and place in the fridge.
After three hours or more check to see that the liquid has been enough, if the cous cous, now swollen, seems dry you have to add some more water or some more mix of tomatoes. Let it in the fridge until the following day. If a hotter version is preferred you can add some red pepper oil or some harissa to the mix. With the same process you can also prepare the cous cous with fish, replacing the vegetables with the suitable fish, even if it’s better to cook the fish and use it straight away instead of leaving it in the fridge for an entire night.
