Name: Fish Couscous with Charmoula
Yield: Serves 6 to 8
Cuisine: Italy
Ingredients: 2 teaspoons ground cumin; 2 large onions, diced (about 3 cups); 1 tablespoon paprika; ½ teaspoon cinnamon; 2 teaspoons dried red pepper flakes; 6 cloves garlic, finely minced; 5 ribs celery, diced (about 1½ cups); 1½ cups canned Italian plum tomatoes, drained and diced; Pinch ground cloves; 4 cups Fish Fumet, made with 2 or 3 dried hot peppers, several coriander seeds, and 1 cinnamon stick; Salt and freshly ground pepper; ¼ cup fresh lemon juice; ½ cup olive oil; 2 tablespoons cayenne pepper; ¼ cup ground cumin; 1½ cups medium-grain couscous (we use Ferrero); 2½ to 3 pounds rockfish, grouper, sea bass, flounder, and/or halibut fillets, cut into 3 by 2-inch pieces; Salt and ground pepper; 2¼ cups water; 1 teaspoon salt; ¼ cup unsalted butter; 1 teaspoon cinnamon; Moroccan Charmoula; ¼ cup olive oil

Preparation info

Serves
6 to 8

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

The Mediterranean Kitchen

By Joyce Goldstein

Published 1998

About

This much-requested Square One dish evolved from a combination of recipes. It either comes from North Africa via Sicily or the other way around. At first we called it Cuscusu Trapanese but realized after a while that this dish was much too spicy and North African in spirit to be a true Sicilian fish couscous. Paula Wolfert suggested a compromise—a couscous from Pantelleria, an island between Sicily and North Africa. Geography may be destiny, but our customers don’t seem to care what