A beautiful spring supper you can make in about 18 minutes

Since we’re here in Michigan, spring nearly always starts late. Which means that while my friends down South are almost done with strawberry season, we haven’t even arrived at asparagus yet. In the meantime, though, we do have plenty of mushrooms—which is what got me thinking about this simple and savory dish.

Take the hand-rolled couscous we get from the Mahjoub family in Tunisia, toss it with a generous amount of sautéed mushrooms (I’m partial to chanterelles if you can find them, but really any good mushrooms will work well) and strips of roasted red pepper, and place a soft six-minute egg on top. Throw in a bit of the Mahjoubs’ single-estate, organic extra virgin olive oil (made from the unique-to-Tunisia Chetoui varietal); some sea salt and freshly ground black pepper; and a solid spoonful of the Mahjoubs’ organic, handmade harissa—and you’ve got a tasty meal in a bowl! 

I’ve written about the Mahjoubs’ couscous and harissa many times before. Either or both will very likely alter your beliefs about how good these foods can be. The couscous is made from organic wheat grown on the family farm, milled there, and mixed with water, then hand-rolled and sun-dried—the sun-drying is a major factor in the flavor.

To cook the couscous, use a ratio of three parts water to two parts couscous. Bring the water to a boil, and add a pinch of sea salt and the couscous. Stir well, cook for a minute or so, then cover and turn off the heat. In 12 minutes, the couscous will be ready. Meanwhile, cut or break a bunch of fresh mushrooms into one-inch-or-so pieces. In a skillet, heat a little extra virgin olive oil. Add the mushrooms and another pinch of sea salt, and stir gently. If you like garlic, add that as well. You’ll want to keep cooking the mushrooms until they’re soft.

While the mushrooms are sautéing, start the six-minute eggs—one (or two) per person. There’s such a huge difference in flavor between industrial eggs and locally cared-for options, so if you can, grab some from the market. Bring water to a boil, and add a sprinkle of salt. When the water boils, gently lay in the eggs and cover, and as soon as the water returns to a boil, turn the heat off. Leave covered and standing for five to six minutes (depending on how well cooked you like your eggs), then add ice and run cold water into the pan to stop the cooking. If it’s easier, a fried egg is fine as well.

Cut a few red roasted peppers into strips (I love the bright red wood-roasted Piquillo peppers from the Basque Country). When the couscous is done, lift the lid and gently stir to fluff it, then pour it into a warm serving bowl. Add the sautéed mushroom pieces and the roasted pepper strips, along with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste. Toss in some extra virgin olive oil and stir gently. Peel the egg and place it, whole, atop the bowl. Garnish with a nice spoonful (or three) of the harissa, and break the egg when you’re ready to eat. The bright red of the harissa and the orange yolk of the egg set atop the golden couscous and the golden-brown sautéed mushroom pieces and red pepper strips make for a lovely sight to behold.

Garnish further with some chopped fresh parsley, and add salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy it while it’s warm!

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A terrific taste of Tunisia to make at home

While local vegetables are still in short supply, this simple salad is a wonderful way to feature California cauliflower on these chilly Michigan days as we look to warmer weather.

To make the salad, simply steam or poach fresh cauliflower until it’s al dente—soft enough to be fork-tender, but not completely falling apart. Cool and break into bite-sized florets. Lightly salt the cauliflower (or if you poach it, salt the cooking water). Squeeze on a small bit of fresh lemon juice. Then add some yogurt, a bit of mayonnaise, and a generous amount of harissa, using more or less depending on your taste.

The harissa at our house—and throughout the ZCoB—comes from the Mahjoub family in Tunisia. It’s the kind of food that I have fallen in love with, a food that invited me into the history and culture of Tunisia, and into a new 20-plus-year friendship with Majid Mahjoub. It starts with chiles and tomatoes, all grown organically on the Mahjoub family farm near the Tunisian town of Tebourba. All are sun-dried (which enhances flavor and nutrition), and then blended with spices and the family’s organic extra virgin olive oil into a smooth, savory, spicy pepper spread. All of it is made with a deep connection to Tunisian history and culinary culture. I can imagine the collage coming together now with dry grains of couscous spread like sand across the map of the Southern Mediterranean.

Add some toasted chopped almonds or lightly toasted pine nuts, and mix well. Serve it on arugula or lettuce. Garnish with a little bit of freshly ground cumin or ground caraway seed. Great with German Challah toasted on the side (available Monday, Thursday, and Saturday after 5 pm at the Bakeshop and early the next morning at the Deli)!

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Comfort food from the Southern Mediterranean

This is one of my favorite dishes of all time—octopus, couscous, harissa, and beans simmered together to make a wonderfully delicious stew. I hadn’t thought much about it of late, but while I was down at the Southern Foodways Alliance Symposium in Birmingham, Alabama, this past weekend, it came up in a conversation with North Carolina chef and friend Cheetie Kumar. Since I shared the dish with Cheetie, I thought I’d share it with you as well!

I learned how to make this ages ago on a trip to Tunisia to visit the Mahjoub family, our now-longtime suppliers of great olive oil (which Tammie and I use every day at our house) and other traditional Tunisian products. They’ve been in business for over a century. On their organic farm about an hour southwest of Tunis, they grow the olives for olive oil, wheat for couscous, and peppers and tomatoes for their amazing harissa. Everything we get from them is exceptional. Their hand-rolled, sun-dried couscous, without question, redefines the category. The harissa is a very dense and super-delicious “paste” of sun-dried organic tomatoes and peppers from their farm, plus their oil, garlic, and spices. Each is remarkable on its own. Together in this seafood stew, they turn into a compelling, comforting, super-tasty meal!

The exact, measured-out recipe for the Octo-cous is in Part 4 of the Guide to Good Leading, but this dish is not all that hard to prepare without it. If you start with cooked beans and cooked chickpeas—I confess to using canned more often than not for convenience—it’s about an hour of cook time, most of which is unattended, so you can do whatever other inspiring things you want while the stuff is simmering on the stovetop. The texture you’re looking for in the finished dish is that of a thick stew, so I’ll let you judge, but starting with 1⁄2 cup of couscous will be fine. To put the picture into your mind’s cooking eye, it’s more a tomato-based bean-and-octopus stew with couscous, not a bowl of lightly fluffed couscous with bits of octopus in it. If you don’t have octopus (I get mine at Monahan’s in Kerrytown) or don’t want to include it, there’s really no reason you can’t do this dish with other fish or squid.

To make the stew, mix together water or fish stock, tomato purée and paste (or tomato sauce rather than the purée and paste), extra virgin olive oil, harissa, and a bit of minced garlic. Bring it to a boil in a large, heavy-bottomed pot. Add a bunch of cooked chickpeas and sliced octopus, and then bring the whole pot back to a boil. Reduce the heat so it all barely simmers, cover, and cook for about an hour, until the octopus is tender. The result will be a light and flavorful tomato broth. Stir in fava beans and ground caraway and bring back to a boil. When the beans are tender, add Mahjoub’s amazing couscous. Stir well, turn off the heat, cover, and let rest for 12 minutes or so. The couscous will cook in the broth. Taste for seasoning and adjust accordingly. You can adjust the seasoning with more tomato, garlic, caraway, or harissa, and salt to taste.

Serve in warm bowls with a crescent of olive oil drizzled atop each. If eating it makes you half as happy as it makes me, you’re gonna have a good week! In challenging times, comfort food like this can make all the difference!

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A sweet-spicy meal you can make at home in under 20 minutes

Sometimes small things we find can alter our sense of the world. The Mahjoub family’s hand-rolled, sun-dried couscous is one of those. I came upon their offerings at the Fancy Food Show in New York City—a place where one goes in great part to find new things. For almost 20 years now, the connection that came from that meeting has had a meaningful impact on both the ZCoB and the Mahjoubs. Their products are now integrated into nearly every ZCoB business. And without question, into my home cooking. I reference them more than once in the pamphlet “A Taste of Zingerman’s Food Philosophy.”

From the first day I tried it, I knew I’d found a new understanding of just how good couscous could be. I also learned just how easy it is to make. It is—even just eaten alone with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper—a remarkable meal. Basically, you bring water to a boil with a little sea salt, add couscous, stir, cover, and turn off the flame. Wait 12 minutes. Fluff with a fork. Eat up! You will find some of the tastiest couscous you’ve ever tried. 

To start this particular dish, cook a good amount of the Mahjoub’s M’hamsa (which means “by hand”) Couscous. When the couscous is done, gently take it out of the pan and put it into a large mixing bowl.

Meanwhile, in a separate smaller bowl, make the vinaigrette. Mix a small bit of vinegar with a couple spoonfuls of the lovely Leelanau Apricot Preserves I wrote about last week from American Spoon Foods up in Petoskey. Add some great olive oil—we’re big lovers of the Mahjoub family’s organic extra virgin oil made from the uniquely Tunisian Chetoui olives. For obvious reasons, it’s an ideal ingredient for this dish! Add a bit of the Mahjoub’s spicy, superb Traditional Harissa. Alter the ratio of apricot preserves to harissa to get to the balance point of sweet and heat that’s right for you.

Add the vinaigrette to the couscous. Coarsely chop a fair bit of fresh parsley and fresh mint. Coarse chop some toasted hazelnuts. You can also use a different nut if you like—almonds, walnuts, or the Ziba baby pistachios we have from Afghanistan work really well. Add the nuts and the chopped herbs to the dish. Assess salt and pepper levels to your taste and adjust accordingly.

Pit some fresh, ripe apricots and break them into small bite-sized pieces. Add them to the dish. And add pieces of high-quality cooked chicken. If you have it grilled, all the better—the smoke from the grill goes well with the sweetness of the apricot and the happy heat of the harissa. Grilled shrimp would be good too!

This dish can be served hot for a main course or held at room temperature to serve as a salad. If you leave the meat out, it can be held without refrigerating for a while if you’re considering taking it on a picnic! Enjoy.

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A brief history of really good coucous

In the mountains and valleys that stretch across North Africa, there’s no guarantee of a good harvest from year to year. That’s nothing new for the Berbers. They’ve been farming olives, wheat, vegetables, and fruits there since before Carthage was founded in 814 BCE. (The name “Berber” actually comes from the Roman name for the people: barbarians. In their own language, Berbers call themselves Amazigh, or Free People.) In a good year a Berber tribe would grow plenty of food to sustain themselves. But even in a good year, the farmers learned to look ahead to the future. What if the next year there’s a drought and the harvest is limited? And what if that happens two years in a row? Or what if, after a year or two of bad harvests, a hungry neighboring tribe invades and pillages their food supplies? Those were all common scenarios for the semi-nomadic Berbers.

The solution was to make the harvest transportable.

Like most people looking to preserve food before the days of refrigeration, the Berbers used what they had on hand: salt, oil, sun. In Tunisia, smack dab in the middle of Berber land, sun drying has always been the most important method of preservation. Drying not only preserves, but it also makes the food weigh less. Should the tribe decide to pack up and move, they could take it with them. The Berbers sun dried everything: tomatoes, stone fruits, peppers. And to preserve wheat, they would sun dry couscous.

The basics of making traditional couscous are pretty simple. You take semolina flour and mix it with a bit of salt and water, rub it together to form tiny balls of dough, and then dry ’em out. Today, though, most couscous is made with big, industrialized machines. The whole process can be completed in a couple of hours from start to finish, including just seven minutes for mixers to form the balls and then a whopping eighteen minutes to dry them in huge rotating ovens.

There are still a few producers out there making couscous the traditional, slow way that the Berbers would have made it. The best couscous I know of is made by Majid Mahjoub, himself a descendant of the Berbers, and his company Les Moulins Mahjoub. Mahjoub couscous is m’hamsa (hand-made, in Arabic). Using the Razzag variety of wheat that they grow organically on their own farm, they roll every little ball of couscous by hand, the way it’s been done for millennia. For that reason, this couscous is a little bigger than most, and you may notice that it looks a tad less uniform. That’s a good thing. After the couscous has been shaped, it dries in the sun. That drying doesn’t take minutes or hours—it takes days. All told, a batch of Mahjoub couscous takes about ten days from start to finish.

All that time drying in the sun has a huge impact on flavor.

It’s like the difference between bread that’s allowed to slowly rise and proof for most of a day versus the stuff that’s baked as quickly as possible. The longer drying time allows the couscous to develop deeper, richer flavor. In essence, couscous that’s produced as quickly as possible tastes like flour, while couscous that is made more slowly tastes like bread. The exact same thing happens with the flavor of traditional pastas that are allowed to dry slowly rather than being baked as quickly as possible. Mahjoub couscous is wheaty, toasty, nutty, earthy, with a chewy, firm, toothsome texture. This is no boring grain to be relegated to the corner of the plate and smothered in spices and sauces.

I still remember the first time I tasted Mahjoub couscous. It was a little more than six years ago. The first bite stopped me in my tracks. I had no idea that couscous could be so delicious. But once I got over the surprise, I went back for more, and more, and more. I still always keep a jar or two in my pantry and cook it at least a couple times a month.

Cooking couscous is as easy as boiling water.

Seriously. You bring a pot of water to boil, add the couscous, bring it back to a boil, take the pan off the heat, put a lid on it, and let it sit. After ten minutes, you fluff the couscous with a fork and it’s ready to eat. Majid visits us in Ann Arbor from time to time and he’s cooked up some some outstanding couscous dishes for us. Here are a few of my favorites:

• Couscous with tomato sauce and a perfect egg
  This is one of the simplest ways I know of to serve couscous, and conveniently, it’s also one of the most delicious. After cooking the couscous—roughly ⅓ cup per person as a side dish, or a bit more as a main dish—stir in a bit of good extra virgin olive oil to keep it from sticking. Dish it onto plates and then on top of the couscous spoon a healthy dollop of your favorite tomato sauce, warmed on the stove. Then top that with an egg. I’m partial to a poached egg with the yolk still soft and oozy, but you could use a fried egg, a diced hard-boiled egg, whatever kind of egg fits your fancy. Sprinkle with salt and a grind of fresh pepper, and serve immediately.
• Couscous salad
  To serve four to six people, use 1 1/2 cups of couscous. Once it’s cooked through, stir in a couple tablespoons of good extra virgin olive oil, then let it cool. While it cools, dice a bunch of vegetables: an onion, two tomatoes, a sweet pepper, a cucumber, a little fresh mint, and a preserved lemon. When the couscous has reached room temperature stir in all the vegetables along with a few capers and a splash of white wine vinegar. Once it’s all mixed up, refrigerate it for half an hour or so to chill it and let the flavors meld. Just before serving taste and add salt if needed.
• Sweet couscous
  Majid uses three parts milk to one part couscous. Bring the milk to a boil, and add the couscous. Let it simmer for five minutes, then remove it from the heat and let it cool a bit. That’s it—it’s ready to serve. Majid likes to add a bit of jam to it, but he also recommends you could add a little sugar to sweeten it up a bit more. Since hearing about the recipe, I’ve made it with a little maple syrup and cinnamon and that turned out pretty delicious. Majid likes to eat sweet couscous for breakfast. In the summer he likes to make it the night before and keep it in the fridge overnight, then serve it cold, like a couscous version of rice pudding.

Did we mention that Sun Dried Couscous from Les Moulins Mahjoub is part of our annual Summer Sale? Hurry, sale ends 7/31!

See you soon!