atpotch.livejournal.comThis is (loosely enough for legal reasons, I hope), based on a recipe in Jamie Oliver's Italy, but I intend to play around with it a little because, you know, I'm an idiot. And I need everything explaining to me very slowly. So then:
A Not Entirely Original Fish And CousCous Recipe: Serves 2 Idiots.
Cut up a red onion, or a white onion if you can't be bothered, and bung in about quarter of a bulb of garlic. Then bung in a load of parsley- it probably won't really hurt how much you put in. Less than a whole truck, preferably. Fry these for a few minutes in a reasonably light fat, (olive oil... or possibly lard, if you prefer).
Mix all these in with 200g, (erm....6 or 7 ounces?) of couscous. Bung something like a sieve or maybe a colander with some kitchen roll, or something that will basically hang the stuff over boiling water, over boiling water. Leave for twenty five minutes.
Just after that- there might be enough time for a glass of wine or five pages or Proust- fry another onion, this time just half of one with a fat clove or two thin cloves, or maybe three cloves, if you like, of garlic, for about five minutes. Cut up a red chilli, (or a non-red one, if you're feeling spicy), and mix that in. Very shortly afterwards, find yourself some fish, and add that. I'm being deliberately vague here- my initial recipe suggested bream, but I used good quality tuna steaks, which really aren't all that similar. Slowly pour in, (in several goes- like someone with an incredibly short attention span, but you're doing it for a reason), 700ml, (erm...25 fluid ounces?) of passata, and a much smaller amount of water. Slowly simmer this mixture away for the rest of the time until the couscous is done, adding some more of your parsley hoard and some salt and pepper if you're getting bored, (rather than drunk, which is a better choice by this point, cos there's not much to go).
Then pour half of the parsley, passata, garlic, onion, chilli sauce onto the couscous, (which you may need to pour a little water on (first!) if it's still too grainy after its steambath), and leave it to sit around. Bung the rest of the tomato sauce with the fish on an almost ludicrously low oven, (80C...160F, Gas 1), for as long as you can be bothered. Half an hour was suggested, but my accomplice and I got bored after about twenty minutes. In the meanwhile, if you're not completely distracted by your lovely, lovely Chianti, make a rocket salad by getting some rocket and squeezing some lime in. Maybe chop up some peppers. You know the sort of thing.
I did this with olives, lemons and peppers as a starter and sticky toffee pudding for dessert.
The sticky toffee pudding was out of a pot from Sainsbury's. But then, I am an idiot.
TCH