Curried Couscous

It's Barefoot Thursday!

Barefoot Bloggers are a group of bloggers that twice a month prepare a (almost always) delicious recipe from the Barefoot Contessa Ina Garten. This weeks recipe was selected by Ellyn of Recipe Collector and Tester . She chose Curried Couscous from the Barefoot Contessa cookbook.

Well I'm going to be totally up front with you...I did not want to like this recipe. I have long turned my nose up at all things "curried"-and honestly only because of the smell; I just can't stand the smell of curry. But I made the recipe thinking Ina has never steered me wrong and why would I let my aberrant fear of curry stand in the way of a potentially delicious dinner?

Well..she did it again-it was a fabulous recipe. I made one omission and one addition (and one little tweak-for personal taste). The omission was the raisins/currants. I only like raisins if they are covered in chocolate and since I did not think that chocolate would be a good addition omission seemed the only option-my kids were grateful for that. (And speaking of my kids, they don't really care for nuts so while I did add the almonds to the final dish I photographed the dish before stirring them in!)

The addition was to take an entire rotisserie chicken, dice and toss in...it was delicious and made it a meal.

And now for the tweak...I am almost embarrassed about the tweak. In my heart I knew that Ina would know just the right amount of each ingredient, but when it came to adding in the curry my olfactory receptors seemed to take over and make me decrease the curry to 1/2 teaspoon...it was curried enough.

Curried Couscous

Copyright, 1999, The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook

1 1/2 cups couscous

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

1 1/2 cups boiling water

1/4 cup plain yogurt

1/4 cup good olive oil

1 teaspoon white wine vinegar

1 teaspoon curry powder

1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric

1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1/2 cup small-diced carrots

1/2 cup minced fresh flat-leaf parsley

1/2 cup dried currants or raisins

1/4 cup blanched sliced almonds

2 scallions, thinly sliced (white and green parts)

1/4 cup small-diced red onion

Directions:

Place the couscous in a medium bowl. Melt the butter in the boiling water and pour over the couscous to soak for 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork.

Whisk together the yogurt, olive oil, vinegar, curry, turmeric, salt, and pepper. Pour over the fluffed couscous, and mix well with a fork. Add the carrots, parsley, currants, almonds, scallions, and the red onions, mix well and season to taste. Serve at room temperature.

(Sorry about this photo...it's been dark and rainy around here the last few days and so hard to get a bright shot!:))