Couscous salad with roquefort and corn
The alarm goes at 6 am and I fumble around to hit the repeat button. I need just a tiny bit longer… Ten minutes later the damn thing is going on again and with a deep sigh I swing my legs over the edge of the bed. Gizmo – always on the lookout for people movements – immediately comes to stand at my side, miauwing loudly. Logically feeding her is the first thing she has on her mind. And she makes sure it is also the first thing I have on my mind… She will walk in front of me all the way from the bedroom to the bathroom, so if I want to avoid falling over her… feeding time it is.
I walk sleepily downstairs to make coffee and breakfast and peer out of the window, expecting grey skies and falling rain. That has been the norm for the last couple of months with the occasional day of sunshine in between. So out of habit I peer outside and continue my walk to the coffeemachine and then it hits me… there is no rain!! I peer outside again and lo and behold… it is true; it is actually dry… It’s too early in the day to have the sun out but it looks promising.
All of a sudden much more awake; I quickly make a pot of coffee, pour some granola and quark in a bowl, add some blueberries that are leftover from yesterday’s shoot to it and go back upstairs. I wake up Tom and we have coffee in bed as we do every morning.
I check my Iphone to see if the weather forecast is predicting the same thing that I am seeing (not that the weather forecast is by any means reliable, but, as we used to say when I worked in planning; a forecast is by definition always wrong).
In this case however I am glad to confirm that we did indeed have a sunny day. Unbelievable but true. Even as I peer outside now from behind the computer the sky is bright blue and the sun is still out (it 6.30 pm.
Still it amazes me how the entire air seems to vibrate with autumn rather then summer. I had dinner with two friends on tuesday (at Gent aan de Schinkel) and because I was early, I decided to have a coffee outside on the terrace of the cafe in Amsterdam where we were meeting. And that’s when it hit me. You know what I mean right? At some point going toward autumn, something changes in the air, it’s the color, the smell and little things that make you aware of the fact that summer is over and autumn is moving in.
Even now, after having the wettest summer in history (and that means something from a country with plenty of rain to begin with) you can still tell the difference. The funny thing is that you need a sunny day to be able to sense it. Rainy days don’t work.
Naturally, because it was sunny and bright today, I wanted to make a salad. My photo shoot of the day was cancelled this morning so I had a little spare time and what better way to spend it then by being outside and eating this delicious salad featuring one of my favorite ingredients; couscous.
Couscous with roquefort and corn
Ingredients
- 75 g Couscous
- 75 g roquefort
- 150 ml Chicken stock
- 5 pieces radishes
- 3 tablespoons corn
- 20 g alfalfa
Dressing
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 tablespoon lime juice
- salt
- 3 leaves mint Chopped finely
- pepper
Instructions
- Put the couscous in a bowl and bring the chicken stock to the boil. Obviously if you want to use vegetable stock that is possible too. That would also make this a vegetarian dish. Leave this to stand for about 4 minutes or per package instructions
- Once the couscous is cooked, add the corn, chopped radishes and crumbled roquefort to the couscous and stir.
- Make a dressing with the olive oil, lime juice, chopped mint and salt and pepper. You need only a tiny bit for the salad and it even tastes good without using the dressing at all. I just find it difficult to mix and taste dressing with teaspoon measurements. You can always use the dressing for something else later if you have leftover (and you will have leftovers)
- Put the couscous on a plate and drizzle a little of the dressing on top. Finish your dish with a bit of alfalfa on top and some lamb's lettuce around the couscous.
- Enjoy!
Disclaimer
The nutritional values above are calculated per portion. The details are based on standard nutritional tables and do not constitute a professional nutritional advice.
It’s delicious and you can easily substitute the roquefort for a lot of other salty cheeses, such as feta or hmmm fried halloumi cubes. I actually wanted to do this with halloumi but that is hard to find in Almere (if anyone knows of a place in Almere then let me know!) so I used roquefort and that was delicious!
Check here for some other recipes with couscous
