Couscous with lamb and vegetables. Couscous with lamb and vegetables

Recipe for lamb with couscous

1. Many have heard the word “Cous-Cous”, but not many even imagine what it is. Getting to know Kurdish cuisine, We came across one very interesting recipe for cooking lamb with couscous. Couscous is pellets of semolina or wheat, moistened with oil and passed through a sieve to form lumps of the same size. In general, couscous is usually made from millet. Couscous is rich in minerals such as potassium, iron, calcium and sodium, contains a lot of protein and complex. Couscous also contains thiamine and tryptophan, which make a person resistant to stress and depression and help improve sleep. It is from such a wonderful product that we will prepare today’s next Caucasian dish
2. Take fresh (not frozen) lamb from the market; loin, ham or shoulder are perfect. We clean the meat from films and tendons, cut off excess fat, and rinse thoroughly under running cold water. Cut the prepared lamb into cubes approximately 3x3 cm.
3. Take a frying pan, add a little oil and heat the pan well. Place the prepared pieces of meat on a heated frying pan. It is best if, during frying, the meat feels free in the pan, it will fry better and will not be dry. If there is a lot of meat and the frying pan is small, use portioned frying of meat
4. As soon as the meat is fried and covered with an appetizing golden brown crust, reduce the heat, add pepper and salt. If the oil has all burned out, add a little water to prevent the meat from burning. Now cover with a lid and fry for another 15 - 20 minutes, until it is completely cooked.
5. Place the finished meat in a separate bowl and cover tightly with a lid. Place chopped onions in the oil where the meat was fried and, stirring from time to time, fry it. The finished onion will become soft and lose its matte tint.
6. Pour couscous into the fried onions, add salt and stir. Place the fried meat on top and add boiling water to lightly cover the couscous. Be careful not to overdo it with water, as too much water can cause the couscous to fall apart and turn into a homogeneous mixture.
7. Now cover well with a lid and just let the dish brew. 8 – 10 minutes will be enough. The couscous will absorb the water, along with which the taste of fried meat and the aroma of spices will come to it. This dish of Kurdish cuisine, unexpectedly prepared for a small family holiday, it will be a real culinary trick from you for everyone gathered at the table

I apologize for my face in the photo. Unfortunately there is no other picture.
Over the summer I watched one of the best films in recent years. In Russian - “couscous and red mullet”. In French - "La Graine et le Mulet" (Grits and mullet). Unfortunately, it was shown only in one cinema in a huge city, one show per day. The film is in French with Russian subtitles. There were 12 people in the hall. What a micro-miniature world we live in! In the nano world! How many people in Russia watched it? And the film is hundreds of times smarter, subtler and, if you like, more useful than all other films in today's box office. It's very rare to see something like this.
And they really cook mullet there, not red mullet. She is shown in close-up several times, it is impossible to confuse her. Mullet in French mulet rouge. But that didn't make the film any worse. And you have to watch it without translation. That's the only way.
I highly recommend it to everyone.
And in honor of this masterpiece I prepared couscous. I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time, and then I watched the movie. Only I made it not with mullet, but with lamb.

750 g couscous
1 leg of lamb
1 yellow pepper
1 red pepper
1 green pepper
4 hot peppers
1 large eggplant
1 small zucchini or 1 large zucchini
1 handful of chickpeas
200 g green beans
2 large potatoes
3 carrots
300 g pumpkin
1 head of garlic
8 shallots or other small onions
Sage, nutmeg, curry, cumin, sujuk.

Chop the leg of lamb into about 12 pieces. Rinse thoroughly to remove bone fragments. Place in a large saucepan. Add two onions cut in half. Pour in cold water and cook for about 30 minutes, constantly skimming off the foam.

Soak chickpeas in cold water, add a tablespoon of baking soda.

Chop the vegetables coarsely. Leave the bulbs and head of garlic whole. Place in layers in a cauldron. Established empirically (do not look at the photo),

that it is better to put carrots, peas (rinse from soda), then onions, garlic, peppers, eggplant, beans. And put potatoes, zucchini and pumpkin on top. And put hot peppers even higher, 3 pieces. Pour lamb broth through a sieve. Salt, add nutmeg and curry. Simmer over low heat until the potatoes are ready.
Add boiling water to the lamb, add salt and one hot pepper. Continue cooking over low heat.
Remove potatoes, pumpkin and zucchini from the cauldron.

We will need potatoes for another dish - let's call it associated soup, by analogy with associated gas. We won’t prepare it specially, it will work out on its own. And they took out the pumpkin and zucchini so that they would not boil over.
Mix the contents of the cauldron very carefully. In this case, it is better to take out the hot peppers so as not to damage them, otherwise it will be very spicy. We take the meat out of the pan, remove the bones and place it in the cauldron on top of the vegetables. Don't forget about our hot peppers. Add the crushed cumin and cook over very, very low heat, almost without boiling, for about another hour and a half.
Strain the broth through a sieve. We measure out 750 ml.

Add saffron and cumin crushed with salt. Bring to a boil. Remove from heat. Pour the couscous into the pan, stirring constantly.

Close the lid tightly and let sit for about five minutes.
Place the couscous on a plate.

Using a slotted spoon with holes, carefully place vegetables on top (don’t forget about pumpkin and zucchini) and meat from the cauldron. Sprinkle with sujuk.

Serve immediately.

Excessive beer consumption is harmful to your health.

Passing soup.
In the cauldron we were left with a delicious broth with uncaught pieces of meat and vegetables. Put the potatoes in there and bring to a boil. The soup is ready. We ate it a couple of hours after the couscous. A second wind has opened.

Couscous with lamb and vegetables

Mark Efimov

The dish called “couscous” came into Israeli cuisine thanks to immigrants from Morocco. It became known in the Maghreb countries between the 12th and 13th centuries, where it was brought by nomadic Berber tribes. The Arabs spread couscous throughout North Africa and the Middle East, and it is popular in many Mediterranean cuisines.

Couscous grains are semolina grains ground from durum wheat and coated with a thin layer of wheat flour, approximately 2 mm in diameter. In Morocco, Algeria, Libya and Tunisia, this is still done by hand: semolina is poured onto a flat dish sprinkled with flour, sprinkled with salted water, and the semolina is “rolled” over the dish with the palm of your hand. The result is balls of different diameters. They are sifted through a sieve, the large ones are kneaded and put back into use, and as a result, a homogeneous “fraction” is obtained. The procedure is not complicated, but it requires time and, most importantly, skill. Recently, instant couscous has appeared on sale; you can find it in some supermarkets.

Traditionally, couscous is steamed. Berbers in nomadic conditions do the following: they place the cereal in a sieve, tie the top with a cloth so that cold air does not penetrate, and place it on a vessel boiling over a fire. Steaming takes about an hour, the balls increase in volume and become almost transparent. Sedentary peoples use a double boiler, called “couscoussiere” in cooking. Moreover, in Morocco it is customary to leave it open and loosen the couscous in the middle of the process, and in Tunisia they close the couscous with a lid to get a moister and denser grain.

There are many options for dishes with this side dish. We offer our readers a recipe from Israeli chef Roman Gershuni. In 1990, Roman and his parents left the USSR for Israel, where he graduated from school and served in the army. He received his qualification as a chef at the Dan five-star hotel chain. Worked in Eilat, Herzliya and Tel Aviv. For the last four years, Roman Gershuni has been working as a chef in Moscow. He oversees several restaurants, organizes kosher banquets and Passover seders, and, as part of the Eshkol project, introduces Muscovites to modern Israeli cuisine.

For 6 people you will need: 1 kg of couscous, 100 ml of vegetable oil, 30 g of salt, 500 g of lamb shoulder, 300 g of carrots, 3 (100 g each) large onions, 300 g of celery root, 400 g of sweet potato, 200 g leeks (white part), 300 g zucchini, 30 g garlic, 500 g boiled chickpeas, 2 tbsp. l. with a heap of paprika, 2 tbsp. l. turmeric, 200 g tomato paste, 30 g raisins, a pinch of cinnamon.

Pour hot broth into instant couscous in a ratio of one to two, add a little salt and ground black pepper and, fluffing with a fork, simmer over low heat for up to 10 minutes. If there is no broth, you can add water to the cereal, adding 1 tbsp. l. olive oil at the beginning and end of cooking.

Cut the lamb into large pieces and cut one onion into half rings. Quickly fry them together in vegetable oil in a hot pan. Add paprika and tomato paste. Sauté a little, then pour in 4 liters of cold water. Bring to a boil and cook over medium heat. After 1.5 hours, add coarsely chopped carrots, celery, sweet potatoes, zucchini, leeks, onions and whole peeled garlic cloves. (You can add pumpkin along with other vegetables. It will give the stew an interesting color and consistency.) Add the cooked chickpeas and stir. Cook over medium heat for another 30 minutes (it is acceptable if the vegetables boil and lose their shape). To serve the dish, fry the onion, cut into thin rings, in a separate frying pan until golden brown. Add raisins and cinnamon. Mix. Place the finished cereal in a heap on a large dish. Make a hole in the center and place the prepared vegetables and lamb in it. Lightly pour the resulting broth over the cereal (but the cereal should remain crumbly). Garnish with fried onions and raisins.

Couscous with lamb and vegetables (Tunisian cuisine)

6 large pieces of lamb (shoulder, neck), 750 g couscous (see Cooking couscous), 1 tbsp. ground red pepper, 1 tsp. ground black pepper, 1/2 tbsp. adjika (optional), 5 onions, 160 g vegetable oil, 2 tbsp. tomato paste, 1 tbsp. chickpeas (or chickpeas) soaked the day before, 1 small head of cabbage, 3 large potatoes, 3 large carrots, 3 small turnips, 5 sweet peppers, 50 g salted butter, 1 tbsp. ground cinnamon, 1 tsp. ground rose buds (optional), salt, ground black pepper.

Place the pieces of meat in a 6-liter pan, add red and black pepper, adjika, finely chopped onion and vegetable oil. Fry over low heat for several minutes, then add tomato paste, soaked chickpeas, pour 2 tbsp. water and simmer for 15 minutes. Peel and wash the vegetables. Cut potatoes, carrots, turnips in half lengthwise, and a head of cabbage into 4 pieces. Leave the capsicum whole, removing the seeds. Place potatoes, carrots, turnips and cabbage in a saucepan with peas, add 1.5 liters of water and bring to a boil. In a deep dish, pour 2 tbsp over couscous. cold salted water, knead with your fingers to prevent lumps from forming. When the water is completely absorbed, put the cereal in a colander without compacting it, and secure the colander over the pan with meat and vegetables (wrap the joint with a rag soaked in the batter) and cook at a low boil for 30 minutes, counting from the moment when the steam begins to pass through couscous grains. After this, remove the colander and place the cereal on a large dish. Using a wooden spoon, stir the cereal and break up any lumps that have formed. Sprinkle with cold water and let stand for a few minutes until all the water is absorbed. Place the cereal back into the colander, secure it over the pan and cook for 5 minutes, counting from the moment when steam begins to pass through the cereal. Remove the colander. Place bell peppers in a pan with meat and vegetables and keep it there for 5 minutes. At this time, quickly mix the hot cereal with salted butter (ghee) and cinnamon, ground rosebuds. Pour the hot broth over the couscous, making sure it doesn't become too wet. Mix carefully. Place the couscous in a preheated dish and place pieces of meat and vegetables on top. Serve immediately. Serve the broth separately. If desired, everyone pours it over the couscous directly on the plate. Options. You can use chicken instead of lamb. You can not put the sweet pepper in the pan, but fry it in vegetable oil, remove the skin and serve it in this form with couscous. Note. In Morocco, instead of tomato paste, ground red pepper and adjika, they put 1 tbsp. saffron, 1 tbsp. finely chopped green cilantro, instead of vegetable oil - 150 g of butter. Additionally add vegetables: 2 large unpeeled eggplants, cut into large pieces, 400 g of red pumpkin (but it cooks very quickly). (V.E. Egoshkin “Cuisine of the peoples of the Arab Maghreb”)

The dish couscous originated in Morocco, where it has been part of the country's national cuisine for many centuries. In addition, it is very popular in Tunisia, Algeria, Tripolitania, Libya and a number of other eastern countries, where couscous is one of the main foodstuffs.

The word "cous-cous" comes from the Berber language, where it was pronounced "seksou". At first, couscous was the food of nomadic and agricultural peoples, and then it became popular, regularly prepared in every home.

According to ancient Eastern tradition, women cook couscous. Typically, wheat couscous is made using semolina (crushed wheat) and other grains, as well as salt and water. To do this, semolina was moistened with salted water, and small grains were carefully formed from it and sifted. The resulting couscous was then dried. However, this cooking process is extremely labor-intensive and long, so today it is mechanized.
There are many recipes for preparing this wonderful dish, and the uniqueness of the recipe includes all kinds of ingredients. However, traditionally, couscous is steamed and served with pieces of stewed meat and vegetables. It is usually also flavored with lemon juice and garnished with mint leaves.

Ingredients for preparing couscous with lamb and vegetables:

1 kg lamb;
. 500 g couscous;
. 100 ml olive oil;
. 3 tomatoes;
. 1 carrot;
. 2 turnips;
. cabbage;
. 1 pod of sweet pepper;
. 2 zucchini;
. 2 eggplants;
. 1 bunch of cilantro;
. 1 tsp ginger;
. salt, saffron and white pepper - to taste.

Lightly sprinkle the couscous with water and mix with olive oil. While the cereal swells, rinse and cook the lamb, adding all the spices and the rest of the olive oil to the water. Gradually add coarsely chopped vegetables - turnips, carrots, tomatoes, cabbage and sweet peppers - to the water with lamb, cook for 10 minutes. Eggplants and zucchini are added last; after adding them, continue cooking for another 30 minutes over low heat.
Place the couscous in a colander, which must first be secured over the pan in which the vegetables and lamb are cooked.
When the couscous becomes crumbly, place it on a large dish, pour over the sauce formed when cooking the lamb, place pieces of meat on it, and vegetables around it. The dish should be decorated with fresh mint leaves and served!