Couscous Salad with Sun Dried Tomato and Feta

• porcie: 5 servings
• aktívny čas: 12 minutes
• celkový čas: 12 minutes

Ingrediencie

1 1/4 cups dried couscous (Note 1)

1 1/4 cups / 315 ml boiled water

1 tsp vegetable stock powder (or 1 cube crumbled, Note 2)

1 garlic clove (, minced)

1 tsp coriander powder (or cumin - I interchange)

400 g / 14 oz chickpeas (1 can) (, drained)

1/2 cup coriander (, finely chopped)

1/2 cup parsley (, finely chopped, or mint)

1 red onion (, chopped)

220 g / 7 oz jar sun dried tomato strips in OIL (Note 3)

120 g / 4 oz rocket / arugula lettuce (, chopped into 5 cm / 2" pieces)

Zest of 1 large lemon

5 tbsp fresh lemon juice (2 large lemons)

1/2 tsp coarsely ground black pepper

60 g / 2 oz feta (, crumbled)

Salt and pepper (, to taste)

Postup

Place chickpeas, couscous, vegetable stock powder, coriander and garlic in a large bowl. Pour over hot water, shake to level out couscous (chickpeas should mostly settle on top). Cover with plate or cling wrap, set aside for 5 minutes.

Fluff couscous with fork. Cool a bit.

Add coriander, parsley, onion, sun dried tomatoes (including all oil), rocket, lemon juice and black pepper. Sprinkle zest across surface. Toss well to combine.

Adjust salt and pepper to taste.

Transfer to serving bowl, sprinkle with feta. Serve.

Poznámky

1. Couscous are tiny grains the size of cracked pepper. They are made from wheat - it's essential teeny pasta. Because it's so small, you just need to soak it. You can substitute with quinoa, barley or other grains - cook as required for those grains.

If you want to make this with Israeli or Pearl Couscous which are larger beads of couscous, cook per the packet (it needs to be boiled) then proceed wth the recipe but skip the soaking in boiled water.

2. Using stock powder or a crumbled bouillon cube goes a long way to add flavour to your couscous. Stock powder is basically bouillon cubes in powder form. 1 tsp = 1 cube. I like to use vegetable but chicken is also great. I use Vegeta. (PS Great to have on hand - of recipe calls for broth, just dissolve in hot water, 1 - 1 1/2 tsp per cup. Much more economical than buying liquid broth).

The alternative is to use boiled vegetable or chicken broth instead of water. Salt is a last resort - if you use salt, I would add 1/2 tsp cumin powder, 1/4 tsp each onion and garlic powder which will add more layers of flavour.

3. This recipe uses the oil in the sun dried tomato jar as the dressing. If you only have the sun dried tomatoes without oil, just drizzle olive oil over the salad - I think you'll need about 1/3 cup (80ml), maybe a bit more. There's far less than this in a jar of sun dried tomatoes but because the tomatoes themselves are soaked in the oil, it feels like there's more!

STORAGE / MAKE AHEAD: Even dressed, this keeps well for 2 days or so because it's not leafy or weighed down with an oily dressing. To make ahead fresh, just place all the ingredients in a bowl except the sun dried tomato and lemon juice. Then add them just before serving and toss!

Výživové hodnoty

• Veľkosť porcie: 183 g
• Kalórie: 260 kcal