Just Like Sahmeepee

After last night's thrilling culinary odyssey, blast from the past commenter Sahmeepee left a recipe, ripped from the back of an Asda couscous packet. It sounded all right and I had most of the ingredients lurking at the back of my cupboard, so I thought I'd give it a go.

I've been getting a little obsessed with the recipe on the side of ASDA's couscous packet. You should try it.

Recipe
Vegetable oil
Onion
Ground ginger
Whole cumin seeds
Butter
Couscous
Vegetable stock
Dried fruit
Flaked almonds

Fry up a small onion in a medium-sized frying pan and add some ground ginger, cinnamon and a little cumin (tbh I like it without the cumin). Also add a bit of garlic. I use the stuff in a tube - about a toothbrush full of that should be A-OK.

I had no garlic so I used some anchovie paste, also my cinnamon was absent so I skipped that too.

When the onion has started to go clear, add 200g or so of couscous. Stir it up so that the oil (they used butter, but I never buy it) has coated the couscous and everything's all mixed up.

Mix up about 400ml of vegetable stock and add it to the pan, wait until it starts to simmer, and then turn the heat off. Stir in a small handful of raisins and leave the pan covered for 5-10 minutes. They put dried apricots and almonds in with the raisins, but my cupboards aren't so well-stocked.

I put in the small handful of raisins as suggested but it didn't look like enough, so I poured in a bit more and more and more. Possibly too much.

Looks okay, tastes fine.