Discovering couscous.

No, this isn't my salad, but mine looked similar, before I ate it all.

I know I am really late to this whole couscous thing, and honestly I don't really know why I haven't try it before. There are certainly plenty of recipes on the internet that I've came across in the past, and it's really not that difficult cook. What finally did it was the combination of a couple of posts from a couple of food blogs that I've been following and coming across a small package of it in my local supermarket. It was a small box of it, and the instruction on the back made it look even easier. It was basically pour hot water on it, stir, then wait four minutes. So I picked up the box along with my other grocery, and went home. When I got home, I looked up the posts that I saw previously, then it led me to couscous tabbouleh. Later that evening, I got a bit peckish and it just so happened I had some cucumber and almost overripe tomatoes in the fridge, so I decided to give it a try.
I cooked the couscous following the instructions, but instead of salted water I used chicken broth instead. While the couscous was sitting there, soaking up all those chicken broth for those four minutes. I diced up some cucumber, tomatoes, along with some celery that was in my fridge as well. Onto the next thing, which was the dressing. I pulled out a mortar that had been gathering dust in the corner of my kitchen for some time and worked some garlic into a pulp. I think I used two cloves, which was a bit overkill, but I really love garlic so I think it turned out great. I then squeezed about half a lemon's juice into it, added some coarse sea salt and grind up some pepper. The last step was to whip some olive oil into it and then it was done. Then it was just a matter of throwing everything together.
That first spoonful was eye-opening, and really made me wonder why I waited so long to try this grain like pasta. I am already thinking about making it for lunch at work and other possibilities.
Photo credit: Hunts