Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Lamb & Couscous - 3/25/08

After a busy week, it was nice to be able to put this meal together very quickly, but still have it be very enjoyable.

Lamb & Leeks

The lamb technically needs to marinate in some soy sauce, sherry, vinegar, sugar, cornstarch, salt, and pepper for an hour, but I only did it for 15 minutes and it came out quite good. Some sliced leeks are then cooked in some sesame oil until tender and removed from the pan/wok. The lamb is then cooked with minced ginger in more sesame oil until it is no longer pink. The leeks are added back in with more sherry. All of this came together nicely and the flavors melded.

Lemon Couscous

As a side dish, I wanted something Greek to go with the lamb. I chose couscous salad since it is very easy and flexible. This recipe has you prepare plain couscous with red onion in the pot. This is then tossed with kalamata olives, golden raisins, feta cheese, parsley, and pine nuts. For a dressing, equal parts of lemon juice and olive oil are whisked together with chopped garlic, oregano, salt, and pepper. This dressing is then mixed into the couscous. This salad was absolutely delicious. I did not expect the raisins to go well with the salty ingredients, but their sweetness was muted. Couscous salad can be made with all sorts of other flavors, including basil, lime, curry, tomato, eggplant, dill, and pretty much anything else you want. It is a pasta, though, so don't think it is a healthy, whole-grain rice. This salad would also be good cold or at room temperature, but I prefer it piping hot.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This looks dericious! ^-^;
I never tried lamb before, but this makes me want to go out and buy it!