Roasted Vegetables with Couscous

Couscous is such a wonderful ingredient; its light and airy.  It also makes for an excellent palette for the melding of flavors and binds the many parts of the dish together. I've made this salad with roasted vegetables, as roasting given them that extra bit of punch, and I love a bit of charing around the edges. This salad is simple enough and requires little attention, as its just a matter of prepping the vegetables and leaving them to roast in the oven. I've also added some Hungarian smoked sausage, as it adds a different texture and some smokiness, but you can use any bacon or chorizo as a substitute, or omit it altogether for a vegetarian version.

Ingredients

• 4-5 thin slices of smoked Hungarian sausage, quartered
• 1/2 red onion, roughly chopped
• 1 carrot, roughly chopped
• 1 aubergine, cut into thick cubes
• 1/2 zucchini, cut into thick match-sticks
• 2-3 florets of cauliflower, split along the stem
• 3 pickled gerkins, roughly chopped
• 1/2 cup uncooked couscous
• 1 cup low sodium chicken stock
• 1 tsp dry rosemary
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• juice of 1/2 a lemon
• salt and pepper to taste

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200C/gas mark 6.
2. Add the sausage, onion, carrot, aubergine and cauliflower in a roasting pan. Add the oil and rosemary and toss around to get the oil to evenly coat the vegetables. Sprinkle on some salt and pepper. Add a little extra salt as it'll make the vegetables a little bit crisper and will be balanced out by the couscous.
3. Place the roasting tin in the oven and leave it in there for 40 minutes. Turn once at 20 minutes, but otherwise leave it alone.
4. Heat the chicken stock till it starts boiling. Add the boiling stock to the couscous, cover and leave aside.
5. Once the couscous has cooked, add the gerkins.
6. Once the roastings done, remove from the oven, add the couscous to the mix and toss the mixture around.
7. Leave it covered for a minute, as it will allow the couscous to absorb the roasting juices.
8. Plate up, add a splash of the lemon juice and serve up. 

Egg Ribbon Salad

Was headed to a buffet for dinner the other night (a friend had sold it to me with such zeal that I had to have a light lunch to do it justice), and so decided to make a light salad for lunch. This salad is incredibly quick to make, and lightly dressed with a sweet and sour asian style dressing. I used fish sauce in my dressing, to add a nice sour and salty zing, but if you're making a vegetarian version, any flavoured salad vinegar, such as a sherry or cider vinegar can be used to add sourness. The preparation time is around 10 minutes, and the cooking and assembling another 10 minutes. 

Ingredients

• 3 eggs
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1 medium purple onion, chopped into cubes
• 1 tomato, chopped into cubes
• 1 inch ginger, sliced into matchsticks
• 1 tbsp jalapeños, roughly chopped
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp fish sauce
• 1 tsp honey
• pepper to taste

Method

1. Beat the eggs and add a little salt and pepper to taste.
2. Heat the butter in a pan, and when hot, and turning brown, add the eggs, spread around and then lower the heat and cover.
3. Cook for a minute on low heat to create a thin and firm omlette and flip it around.
4. Cook on the other side on a low flame to create a thin and brightly yellow omelet.
5. Take it off the pan and set aside to cool.
6. Mix the olive oil, fish sauce, soy sauce and honey and beat around in a large bowl with a fork to create an emulsion. The fish sauce adds the required saltiness to the salad, but in case you're using salad vinegar in its place, add a little salt to the dressing.
7. Add the chopped onion, ginger, jalapeños and tomato to the dressing and toss around.
8. In the meantime, the omelet would have cooled. Roll it and cut it into ribbons.
9. Add these ribbons of egg to the salad and toss it around to ensure that the dressing evenly coats the egg. Be careful while tossing the egg to prevent the egg ribbons from snapping.
10. Serve up either by itself or as an accompaniment to the main.