Steamed Couscous

Recipe for couscous from "Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco" by Paula Wolfert.  This recipe is the most complicated I have ever seen for plain couscous--the recipe is two pages long, though it is actually simple to follow, even though it takes an hour.  The recipe has several wetting, drying, and aerating steps in order to swell the couscous grains without making them lumpy or soggy. This was indeed the fluffiest couscous that I have ever made.  I wasn't able to find the recipe from this book on the web, however, there is a similar recipe here in one of her other books.

I lined my colander with cheesecloth since it has large holes that the couscous could fall through.

I made 1 cup of dried couscous. The couscous expands a lot when it is steamed--we only ate about half, though its good that I made this much, since we will eat the extra tomorrow with the leftover half of the chicken with preserved lemons.

Note: Make sure that you put lots of water in your steamer--it is easy to boil it dry.  I though I had a bunch of water, but in the second steaming, I actually managed to boil away all my water, so next time I recommend adding a bit more water to the pot before the second steaming.

Note: In step 3, the first time I made this I added 1 cup water and 1/2 tsp salt for a couscous made with 1 cup dried couscous.  The second time I made this I added 1 cup water and 3/4 tsp salt for the same amount of dried couscous.  I think the couscous is best with 3/4 tsp salt (though if you are serving it with extremely salty food, you may want to use less salt).

The couscous, part way through cooking

Cooked couscous