Food Travels: Tunisian-Style Couscous

I'm so behind in blogging all the things I want to blog. I had an exam on Monday which took up most of my time and attention since returning from holiday, then this week has largely been spent catching up on all the things I neglected while studying. I still have a few more posts about Tunisia waiting to be written and many, many photos which I'll get round to sharing eventually..


Whilst on holiday in Tunisia, I'm ashamed to say that we ate very little in the way of local or traditional cuisine. Our hotel was booked on a half-board basis and largely served your typical 'Western'-style buffet (we missed their one 'Tunisian night' during our stay - d'oh!) and for lunch most days we just nipped across the road for a quick sandwich, crepe or plate of chips. Naughty us!

We did, however, squeeze in one traditional meal at a little 'restaurant' (for want of a better word) in Sidi Bou Said, recommended to us by our driver. They were clearly not used to catering for foreign tourists but, after some serious navigation, we managed to place an order of four egg brik (a crispy pastry, filled and deep fried), a Tunisian salad, two helpings of chicken couscous and two of onion couscous for the vegetarians.

Or so we thought.

In what was obviously a bad dose of the lost-in-translations, we hadn't communicated the vegetarian idea quite as well as we thought. What actually arrived at our table were four egg and tuna brik; a tuna-topped salad; and four bowls of couscous, with chicken on two and the others topped with what we can only assume to be a huge and bone-filled chunk of lamb.

Well.. we did ask for authentic. And it was certainly a cultural adventure, if nothing else.

That said and done, however, I really enjoyed my couscous once the meat was removed from its top. Tunisia's national dish, it was cooked in a way I'd never experienced couscous before. Rather than an alternative to rice or an accompaniment to salad, this couscous was a meal in its own right: coated in a tomato-based sauce and served with a pile of chickpeas and vegetables on top, it was warm and spicy and so good (ignoring the likelihood that it was all cooked in meat) that I thought I'd try and replicate it here at home.

Couscous in a cafe in Sidi Bou Said, Tunisia.

Most of the recipes I found online followed the pattern of our own dining experience, using chicken or lamb as their base. I couldn't find a vegetarian-friendly recipe that sounded similar to that which we'd eaten, so in the end I settled on this one from BBC GoodFood and adapted it to be meat-free and compensate for some ingredients I happened to be missing.

I used:
2 small onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

2 tbsp tomato puree
Spices: 1 tsp cayenne pepper, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp black pepper, 1 tsp cumin, 1 tsp corriander
1 500g carton of passata
800ml boiled water
1 vegetable stock pot
2 large potatoes, peeled & chopped into large chunks
1 can of chickpeas, drained
1 carrot, sliced
3 small peppers, whole
500g dry couscous

To make:

1. In a large saucepan, lightly fry the onion and garlic for about 2 minutes on a low heat, before adding the tomato puree, spices and a tbsp of water and frying for a further 2 minutes.
2. Add in the passata, vegetable stock pot, potato and about half the water and stir. 
3. In a large bowl, work 2 tbsp water and 1 tbsp olive oil through the dry couscous, one spoon at a time, using a fork to separate any clumps. Once done, place the couscous into a large colander or a steamer ready to sit on top of the saucepan.
4. To the saucepan, add the remaining water, chickpeas, carrot and peppers, stir and allow to simmer.
5. Sit the steamer/colander atop the saucepan and cover with a lid, leaving for 15 minutes. 
6. Fork through the couscous to separate any clumps and cover, allowing the mix to simmer on a low heat for another 30 minutes. 
7. Now it gets messy: Empty the couscous into a large bowl and fluff with a fork. Using the colander, sieve the vegetable mix, separating the sauce from the vegetables. The sauce should then be stirred gently but thoroughly through the couscous and left to absorb.
8. Spoon vegetables onto the top of your couscous and serve! 

NB. This recipe could comfortably serve five people. 

Couscous here in Scotland.

With all that colander action, this dish was far messier and more of an effort than I expected and it'd definitely be worth investing in a saucepan/steamer set if you were making similar meals on a regular basis.

That aside, it was definitely worth the effort. With the exceptions of a different type of couscous grain and the distinct absence of meaty flavouring, this recipe was a good replication of the meal I remember eating in Tunisia. More than that, it's a recipe I will gladly add to my repertoire and use again!

Now if only I could replicate these beauties as accurately.

What's the best dish you've sampled on your travels?

Tunisia: Where We Stayed

 

On our recent trip to Tunisia, we spent 7 nights at the Royal Azur Thalasso Golf hotel in Hammamet.

It wasn't our first choice of hotel, with our original booking still undergoing building work, and reading a number of reviews online prior to arrival had left me pretty apprehensive about what might greet us. First impressions - arriving on an uncharacteristically windy day after 28 hours of being awake - were that the hotel was as tired and grotty as I felt and I wanted to turn around and go home.

Fortunately, my opinion quickly changed.

As the wind died down and the sun picked up, a sense of life emerged around the place. Sure, some of the upper parts of the building's exterior could do with a lick of paint, but the rest of the hotel's grounds are remarkably well kept, awash with blooming flowers and orange trees and those intricately decorated traditional Tunisian doors.

The hotel boasts three swimming pools, a spa, fitness suite and its own private spot of beach.

We made use of the free indoor pool on our blustery arrival day, but it was the outdoor pool that provided the focal point for much of our holiday. Cleaned daily, surrounded by sun loungers and parasols and with waiter service for drinks, it was the perfect place to sunbathe and cool off at the height of the afternoon. The incongruity of the temperatures on the board and the real temperature in the pool did make me chuckle, though ...once I'd got my breath back!

The third pool, spa and fitness suite were a little beyond our budgeting means, but they were busy all week and the bubbling pools overlooking the beach were particularly tempting.

The 'private beach'  itself was, admittedly, a tad disappointing - more rocks and seaweed than golden sands - but, as one of my friends pointed out, growing up on the expansive Scottish coast has made us pretty spoiled. On the plus side, there are plenty of wooden huts and loungers to shade you from the sun; showers right on the beach to wash off all that pesky sand; and the Mediterranean Sea is such a glorious shade of blue that it's impossible to resist swimming in, even if, in May, it isn't as warm as you might have hoped!

The rest of our stay was thoroughly enjoyable. The on-site tour rep office and currency exchange desk, functioning safes in every room, and wireless internet available (at a cost) in the reception area all served us well. The standard and variety of food was good, with breakfast being a particular highlight (made to order crepes, anyone?), though an extra vegetarian option and some better labels on the dinner buffet would have been good... thank goodness for my meat-eating friends! The variety of evening entertainment available in the 'pub' meant we didn't have to venture far (though, after one slightly disturbing encounter with a belly dancer, we opted to spend most nights sipping 'Boga', cocktails or Tunisian rosé in the lobby bar) and Monday evening's free nibbles and Sangria were a very pleasant surprise.

I must say, though, that the staff at the hotel really added to our stay. I'd read, before arrival, that some guests had found them to be unhelpful and demanding, but I found them to be nothing but a delight. From the cleaning team who left our rooms spotless every day; to the repairmen who responded immediately when my friends' bathroom flooded; to the man at reception who put up with our endless difficulties connecting to the web; to our relentlessly cheerful waiter at dinner; to the bar staff who found endless hilarity in our games of 'Who Am I?' (sticking paper to your forehead in a public space will, surprisingly, lead to odd looks and mocking) and our sunburned faces, I could not find fault in the staff team. In a sometimes-intimidating culture, they really made the hotel a safe haven for us - the calm in the proverbial storm.

A 5 star hotel by Tunisian standards, it wouldn't rank nearly so highly here in the UK.. and yet I would still recommend the Royal Azur to friends for a cheap, sunny, relaxing get-away.