In an ideal world, everybody would celebrate everybody’s holidays together, discovering similarities and understanding differences. All of this often happens quite easily when sharing a traditional holiday meal, around the same table, especially when it’s COUSCOUS.

Couscous, instead of rice or pasta, is the easiest thing to do. I don’t mean the meal that is also called COUSCOUS but the actual wheat semolina grains that are easier to prepare, whether in smaller or larger portions.

A lot of couscous making has been going on, especially as we near the end of the Muslim Ramadan month of fasting, during the daylight hours and eating during the sunless hours. How difficult it must be to cook and prepare food without tasting it, since everything is prepared in the daytime of course.

Couscous is no longer an exotic dish, especially in France, the way a curry dish is now considered very English, due to colonial pasts and integration of foods and intermingling of tastes everywhere. It is common in the southern regions of the northern Mediterranean countries, it is customary in the South Mediterranean, North African and the Near Eastern countries and becoming more popular around the world.

It is often prepared with the RAS EL HANOUT spice mixture, which provides the distinctive overall taste and is different to every household. An either hot or milder mixture of 15 and up to 30 different spices, with mostly cumin, coriander, ginger, clove, turmeric (I add less than usual), cinnamon, allspice, fennel, and cayenne with the addition of dried lavender flowers or rose petals (which I replace with some orange zest).

A vegetable stew is always made with large chunks of carrots, turnips, zucchini, onion, tomato and with seasonal variations in the colder months like adding squash or pumpkin, sweet potato or cabbage  or with fennel, peppers, or eggplant in the warmer months, but I added 2 small baby potatoes too because I had them laying around. The chickpeas are a "must" and added at the beginning if pre-soaked or at the end if pre-cooked.

Normally, a homemade family couscous dish is made with only 1 type of meat, usually braised in the vegetable broth and then grilled, such as chicken legs or thighs or small cuts of lamb or beef or the easiest being grilled spicy merguez sausages. I stayed simple and used only a mixture of spicy lamb and beef merguez sausages and homemade herbed poultry sausages, but that is rarer in a traditional household preparation and more of a Westerner and/or restauranter approach. 

When invited to a home or eating out, you will usually be served a COUSCOUS ROYALE with 3-4 types of meats, including sausages and kefte meatballs, because it’s more festive. In Tunisia, it is most often prepared with seafood or fish and there are annual international contests in Sicily for the best couscous dish, usually won by Tunisians but in 2019, it was won by a Senegalese chef for a millet grain couscous with mango, fresh vegetables tartare, a carrot and ginger purée and marinated octopus. Couscous is quite international.

It’s easier to prepare a large amount and to reheat it but more difficult to make in smaller batches of less than 4 servings because of the vegetable stew, but it can be stored in sterilized jars for another meal. Usually 8 servings (of the vegetable stew) is the smallest batch possible, but the meats and actual couscous grains are easy to portion smaller. 

Almost always, everything is served separately. One large bowl of vegetable stew with broth, one large bowl of steaming couscous, one platter of grilled meats, one smaller bowl of chickpeas in broth, sometimes a small side plate of raisins and/or pine nuts and a smaller plate of harissa chili paste. I prefer to prepare the plates for the servings myself, if it’s just for 2-4 people and my ideal balance is half vegetable stew with the added chickpeas, one quarter steamed couscous and one quarter grilled meats.

Welcome to the world of COUSCOUS, with a long list of ingredients but so easy to make (and which also exists in sweet dessert versions) … :)