Cooking things:  Moroccan couscous

I’m still clearing out old stuff from the back of the freezer, and today what I had was part of a rack of lamb—about four tiny chops’ worth.  I couldn’t find anything in MasterCook that called for that little meat (once you subtract for bone, it’s only ten or eleven ounces), so I went and got some boneless lamb stew meat (AT NINE FRIGGIN’ DOLLARS A POUND) and dove into a morning of making North African stew.

Finding the recipe called for turnips surprised me, since I think of turnips as a European root-crop thing, but when I went to research it, I discovered that the mountainous area of northern Morocco are a known turnip-growing area, so turnips are a perfectly reasonable ingredient after all.

Moroccan Couscous

Recipe By     : Marcus Bräunhauser
Serving Size  : 8
Categories    : Lamb/mutton

  Amount  Measure       Ingredient — Preparation Method
--------  ------------  --------------------------------
  2             pounds  Lamb, beef, or chicken
  2                     Onions, minced
  2             ounces  Dried chickpeas, soaked overnight
  2              small  Turnips, quartered
  2              large  Carrots, sliced
  2          teaspoons  Olive oil
                        Salt
                        Black pepper
     1/4      teaspoon  Ground ginger
     1/4      teaspoon  Saffron
  5             ounces  Raisins (I used sultanas)
  3                     Zucchini, sliced
  1                cup  Fava beans, canned
  2                     Diced tomatoes
  2        tablespoons  Minced parsley
                        Cayenne pepper or ground chiles
  1           teaspoon  Paprika
  2        tablespoons  Butter

Put meat, onions, chickpeas, turnips and carrots in a pan, cover with water.  Add oil and pepper.  Season with ginger and saffron to taste.  Boil for about 1 hour.  Add salt when chickpeas are soft.

Make couscous (follow instructions on the package).

Add raisins, beans, zucchini, tomatoes and parsley to the stew and boil for another half hour.

Take out one cup of the sauce and stir in cayenne/chili pepper and paprika powder.  Return to the stew.

To serve, portion half a cup of couscous in a bowl, then cover with the stew and liquid ad lib.

Original poster: ukgk@ibm3090.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de (Marcus Bräuhauser)

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Per Serving : 606 Calories; 24g Fat (35.1% calories from fat); 29g Protein; 72g Carbohydrate; 12g Dietary Fiber; 71mg Cholesterol; 126mg Sodium. Exchanges: 3 Grain(Starch); 2 1/2 Lean Meat; 2 Vegetable; 1 Fruit; 3 1/2 Fat.

It turned out pretty damn remarkable.  I did switch out the fava beans for navies because I dislike favas and limas both. (I’m just not a broad-bean kinda guy.)  L thought it was good despite me cooking the zucchini, as she doesn’t like cooked vegetables much at all, and even M ate some.  It made about four quarts of stew plus the couscous, so now I gotta figure out whether to freeze some of it for later, ’cos otherwise we could all get pretty tired of it by the time it’s gone—and it’s too good to throw any of it out.