One of the joy of cooking is discovering ingredients that I've never work with before. Sure I've tasted those ingredients when I go out to eat. However, the process of purchasing that very same ingredient and working with it in my kitchen is an intimate experience like no other. I can look, smell, feel, and taste every step of the way to observe the subtle (or dramatic) changes that cooking imparts on the ingredient. I dare say I cannot claim to have a proper introduction to an ingredient until I spend some quality time with it in my kitchen.
Tonight, I had the pleasure of being introduced to not one, but two new ingredients. First, it was couscous. My dinner routine is getting a little stale in recent weeks so I wanted to add a new carb outside of my usual pasta, noodle, rice, root vegetables, or bread rotation. My last attempt to shake up my dinner routine was polenta. Although it passed the taste test, cooking polenta was simply too slow for a weeknight dinner with the non-stop stirring for over 30 minutes.
The beautiful part about couscous is that it lies entirely at the opposite end of the spectrum. It only takes 5 minutes to cook AND does not require supervision. How great is that?! For the most basic recipe, all I need is to add a cup of couscous to a cup of boiling chicken stock. Take it off the heat and close the lid. After five minutes, I just need to fluff up the couscous and it's ready. This basic recipe allows for many creative variations. To complement my dinner of pan-seared lamb chops, I added chopped dried apricots and toasted pinenuts to the couscous. The sweetness of the apricot and the fragrance of the pinenuts made this side dish special. I will definitely be making couscous soon.
When I was shopping at Costco, I saw that they have 1.5lb containers of fresh kumquats for $4.99. What a great deal! Of course I couldn't pass up this opportunity. Kumquat is a funny citrus indeed...you can eat the whole fruit, peel and seed and all. What was surprising though, was that the peel was the sweet part of the fruit and the flesh was puckering tart. Although I'm not a big citrus fan, I must admit that I like kumquats because they're like healthy sour candies!
As much as I enjoy eating them fresh, I decided to make a batch of candied kumquats instead in preparation for the upcoming dessert night at Linda. I cut the kumquats crosswise in half and picked out the seeds. In a medium saucepan, I made 500mL of simple syrup and simmer the fruit in the syrup until they looked slightly transparant. After cooking, some of the tartness is tempered by the syrup and is less likely to catch unprepared palettes off guard. The kumquats can now be stored in the fridge for a few weeks. They would make a nice garnish to my dessert this Saturday.
