My Cous Cous Salad

My mom just rang me to ask for my cous cous recipe, as she had replicated it but said it wasn't quiet right, so whilst it's still fresh in my head I said I'd get it out there. I make cous cous every single week. Its great on its own as a salad, or also as accompaniment to roast meats, chicken and lamb in particular. This is the basic recipe, I usually add whatever is in the cupboards, always substituting if necessary

Ingredients

• 150g cous cous
• 210mls of chicken stock or boiling water
• grated rind of lemon
• Olive oil
• Salt, pepper
• thyme leaves
• 1 tbsp of ground cumin
• 2 tbsp dried apricots
• 2-3 tbsp of sultanas
• 50 g of flaked almonds
• Chopped coriander

Method

1. In a large bowl place the cous cous, a drop of oil, rind of lemon, salt and pepper, cumin and thyme.
2. Pour over the stock or boiling water, give it a good stir and cover for 10 minutes to absorb
3. Meanwhile toast the almonds on a baking tray in a single layer in the oven, careful that they don't burn. Sometime I run out of almonds and I use pine nuts.
4. Put the dried fruit in a jug of recently boiled water and leave for 5 minutes to rehydrate
5. After the 10 minutes is up with the cous cous, use a fork to fluff it up, add the drained fruit, chopped if too big, toasted nuts and coriander. Add the juice of half the lemon and do a final fluffing!
6. This keeps for up to 3 days in the fridge, often tasting better on day two.

If I want this to be the main event, I'll add feta (surprise), grated carrot, chopped cucumber, rocket and tomato wedges.

This would be good with my roast red pepper hummous and a pitta bread. Such a healthy lunchbox idea!