Tunisian Couscous With Fish

Couscous with fish seems to be one of the most popular traditional Tunisian dishes. Today, Nijet, our maid, showed me how to make it.

First, take a pot and add:
olive oil
3 or 4 shallots, chopped coarsely
2 or 3 tablespoons of tomato paste
Some yellow spice for which you can substitute saffron
Black pepper
Another unknown spice, I tasted it and was able to make out some red pepper and maybe coriander, but I don't know what else.


bring to a simmer for like 10 minutes, and then add

a handful of chickpeas
3 or 4 coarsely chopped carrots
2 peeled potatoes chopped into large chunks
A few large chunks of some orange winter squash, also peeled

Add enough water to cover everything and let simmer for around 20 minutes

In the meantime, we took an unknown bean which kinda looked like a lima bean, but I think its something else, added some lemon juice to them, and put them in a separate pot with water to boil. All I can tell you about the bean is that it turns brown when it is cooked.


Next, take some whole white fish (I don't know what kind exactly, maybe you can figure out from the picture), and rub them with
Cumin
Fresh crushed garlic
And Sea salt




The couscous itself we put in a pan with some olive oil and a bit of tap water, and let the water get absorbed.

We then added enough water to our vegetable so that the pot was around half full, and put the couscous in a steamer over the pot, and let it steam uncovered for around 10 minutes.


After that, we took some of the broth from the vegetables, and added it to the fish in a pot, just enough to cover them, and brought that pot to a simmer until the fish was cooked. We then put the steamer with couscous back over the vegetables, adding salt and pepper.

Once the fish was cooked, and the couscous partially cooked, we put the couscous in a bowl, and added a few tablespoons of butter, and a couple of cups of broth from both the fish pot and the vegetable pot. The green beans should still be cooking, and start to be shriveled and brown.

Once the couscous has absorbed the broth, add the beans in with the other vegetables.

To serve, put the couscous in a bowl, pour the vegetables with their broth over it, and top with a piece of fish. This dish is usually served with fermented milk, which is kind of like a thick unsweetened yogurt drink.

Enjoy

Hopefully I'll post more recipes in the future