COUSCOUS

Since my wife, May, left to visit our daughters in Perth, I have been having meals bought from or eaten in food courts, food centres, coffee shops and the occasional restaurants. No home cooked food. Sigh.

So I decided to throw up something simple for dinner tonight, it being a Sunday. Simple in the sense everything on a dinner plate. And what can be more simple than fish with couscous. I am not sure what couscous is really. When I Googled I understand it to be a specially prepared combination of semolina and flour. It doesn't matter though, as you can buy a box of it from a supermarket. We usually use San Remo couscous because it was the first one we found in a Cold Storage supermarket and it was not expensive. Since it was good, we have suck with it.
Our first encounter with couscous was way back in the 1990s when we were invited by an Israeli friend to dinner in his apartment in Singapore. His wife served couscous. We actually forgot about it until our daughter Ann served it during one of our visits to her and Joan in Perth a couple of years back. It was yummy. Since then we have been having it occasionally.

After mass today in the Church of the holy Trinity, I went to the nearby Fair Price supermarket and bought a piece of white snapper (locally known as 'ang go li') and a small pack of frozen mixed vegetables (green peas carrot, corn, beans). There was no need to buy the couscous as there was still an almost full box of it at home. Rubbed some salt and pepper on the fish and left it in the fridge.

When dinner time came, I prepared the couscous by mixing a half cup of it with equal part of hot water and left it to expand. In the meantime I pan fired the 'ang go li'. When the couscous became soft but still grainy, I tossed it up in the frying pan (the fish removed) with browned chopped shallot, left-over diced salami and a handful of boiled mix vegetables. Usually we also add almond flakes but I forgot to buy some and there was none left at home. May also likes some mint and raisins. I like raisins in the couscous too and got them ready but left them out and only remembered about it after eating everything up. Ah yah.

Here's my concoction.

If I may say so myself, it was an enjoyable and satisfying meal. Yum.