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Couscous

richardg

richardg

Admonishtrator
What is it, please? Currently having an argument with our lass. She reckons it's a complete meal and has salad and meat included. I reckon it's one component of a meal, ie you have some couscous with salad and meat perhaps .
 
It's a meal. Essentially 3 parts: semoule, vegetable and spice broth, + some meat. The salad part sounds strange - would usually be a separate starter.
The tricky part is getting the semoule right. My friend Fatima says this needs at least 3 separate cycles: mix olive oil into the grains by hand (almost grain by grain), steam cooking in a couscoussier, and repeat twice or three times. This ensures the grains remain light and fluffy.
 
PsB said:
It's a meal. Essentially 3 parts: semoule, vegetable and spice broth, + some meat. The salad part sounds strange - would usually be a separate starter.
The tricky part is getting the semoule right.
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You agree with her, therefore.

Maybe the uk supermarket industry has defined it for me.
 
What everyone in the UK knows as couscous from the supermarket is wheat. Dry, small "grains", usually soaked in a minimum quantity of boiling water with a dash of oil and then steamed.

There may well be DISHES called couscous, but that ain't what you buy in Tesco's.

I like it - VERY nice with liver strogonoff.
 
PsB said:
Yes, she's right and equally importantly, millions of North Africans agree with her.
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Absolutely not if shopping in a UK supermarket.
Buy it in the UK and it is pasta, nothing more, nothing less. It is a starchy belly-filler the same as bread, rice, potatoes etc.

N African couscous is a dish of couscous and stock, meat and/or pulses, spices and potentially much besides, including other carb' sources such as sorghum.
 
richardg said:
What is it, please? Currently having an argument with our lass. She reckons it's a complete meal and has salad and meat included. I reckon it's one component of a meal, ie you have some couscous with salad and meat perhaps .
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I think that the concept is different in French. The thing that British people call couscous, the wheat, the French call semoule. They talk about Couscous aux légumes, for example - which is a complete dish consisting of semoule and vegetables and sauce etc. For them, couscous is the whole meal (but maybe not the salad!)
 
Is "pasta" just the extruded wheat paste that you boil, or is it a complete meal based thereupon? Depending on context, it can be either. Same for couscous. Both English and French dictionaries as say much:

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PsB said:
OK, you can decide to go with Tesco and say it's just the semolina.
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Not really anything at all to do with that.
In the UK, anywhere, you ask for couscous and you will get very coarse dry semolina, and nothing else with it. The only exceptions may be in the minute number of Algerian restaurants here.

Semolina in the UK is also very fine - like very coarse flour.

The "complication" is that, having just checked, @richardg, is in Strasbourg!
 
I guess the only point I'm trying to make is that the UK is not really Couscous Central. So what the UK decides to call it is not terribly relevant, including for somebody like Richard who AFAIK spends most of his time in Strasbourg.
 
Here (Israel) the immigrants from north Africa use it for both meanings.

If you go to the grocery and ask for couscous, you get the semolina. If you're at a restaurant and ask for couscous, you (usually) get it with the broth.
 
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