Saturday 7 May 2011

Seafood and couscous

Pretty quick and easy and absolutely delicious! You can use mixed seafood, prawns, white fish or a mixture.


Makes: 4 servings
Takes: 20 minutes

Ingredients

1 tbsp olive oil
1 large carrot
2 sticks of celery
2 leeks
2 cloves of garlic
pinch of chilli flakes
1 bay leaf
150ml dry white wine
400g tin of tomatoes
400g of seafood
375ml hot vegetable stock
1 lemon
200g couscous
fresh parsley

Method
  1. Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan. Meanwhile, peel and finely dice the carrot, thinly slice the celery, thinly slice the leeks and chop the garlic. Cook the carrot, celery, leeks, garlic, chilli and bay leaf in the oil for about 5 minutes, until softened.
  2. Add the wine and tinned tomatoes to the pan (if using whole plum tomatoes, first blitz them briefly in a blender or chop them by sticking a large knife repeatedly into the open tin). Boil rapidly for 5 minutes to reduce.
  3. Finely grate the zest of the lemon and squeeze the juice of half of it. Put into a small pan with the stock and bring to the boil.
  4. If using fish, cut into small pieces. Turn down the heat under the pan and add the seafood, simmering gently for 5 minutes till piping hot and the fish (if using) is cooked through.
  5. Meanwhile, add the couscous to the boiling stock and lemon juice, stir, remove from the heat and cover. Leave for 5 minutes. Season, add some finely chopped fresh parsley and fluff with a fork. Serve when the couscous and seafood are both ready.
The seafood will freeze well so you can make this to serve 2 by halving the amount of couscous, stock and lemon then saving half the seafood for another occasion.