My (should be) next-to last one:
Recipe - Sausage & Pickled Sage Couscous
This one was fun to make: sausage and onions fried up, raisins and a pickling brine used for a quick sauce, all mixed in/served on couscous. Easy, fun, and people will think you worked all day on it.
First, the integral ingredient...the pickled sage. Now, usually, when I see a recipe that says, "Go make this recipe first," I turn the page; for whatever reason, it's an annoyance of mine. I don't want to "make" ingredients - I want to use already-existing ingredients to make finished dishes.
But...this dish comes from a cookbook that specifically addresses that - it starts with a base item (in this case pickled sage or parsely), then shows you how to use that in three or four follow-on recipes, to save from having to bin things or lose them forever to the Freezer of No Return. The pickled sage is quite easy to make, can be started two weeks ahead and last for an additional two weeks, so I allowed it.
Onto the main attraction!
Nicely simple dish to make: start by browning some sausage links, add in some onions, quick make some basic couscous, throw the onions into that once it's done, set the sausage aside, make a quick sauce with raisins and pickling brine, into the couscous with that, stir it, plate it, top it with the sausage and some of the pickled sage. 35 minutes cooking if you're like me, 25 minutes if you're actually efficient in the kitchen.
The taste? Well, the more I use them in savory dishes, I'm coming round to golden raisins (and other chewy sweet things, like dates and prunes...hmmm...what about Twizzlers?
) being a super-taste secret weapon. That sour/bitter pickley stuff, the power of the onion, the spicy sausage, then tie it all together with a little softy-sweety burst of raisin... I need an emoji of kissing my fingertips in delicious delight - it's simply mouthwatering, it's so good.
I want to comment on that top photo - that's as food-stylist as I get. I had to actually individually place the torn sage, because it was still a little damp from the brine, and wouldn't go anywhere near where it should have. Since I had to do those manually, I took a little extra care with the rest of it, and even used some whole leaves for a little design. Don't get used to it!
I did hit a couple of snags making it - I think I need my own subforum here called Typical Tasty, where I can report all the times I <bleep > up a recipe along the way.
First, as I was measuring out the brine, I'd intended to strain it (though it's arguably better not to), so I set out my little strainer so I would forget, when the time came.
I forgot when the time came. Chucked it all right in.
Second, I'd measured out the scant amount of water I needed (I actually made a half-recipe), and the smallest clean saucepan I had was a medium one, and that amount of water was about 1/4-inch deep in the pan, and I thought, "That'll come to the boil and half boil away before I can get it off the heat and over to the couscous...I'm going to add some more, and then I'll just measure it out once it's boiled." Set out my measuring cup so I wouldn't forget when the time came.
I forgot when the time came. Chucked it all right in.
That made the couscous a little runny at first, but I simply soaked some of the extra liquid up with paper towels, and found that I liked the texture quite a bit more with the extra water...more like a slightly soupy risotto, and less like hard-cooked polenta.
) but that means a 28 km drive, and the front suspension is playing up
