Meatballs And Cous Cous Recipe

On some days hubby gives me 30 minutes notice of early return, which also means I'd need to whip up something for dinner. Something not instant yet takes short instance to put together. For those days I need to keep my secret weapon ready.

I usually make large batches of meatballs and freeze them for impromptu meals. Emergencies like this calls for the meatballs to be defrosted and reheated. But then, sometimes the meatballs are not enough, and you feel that you want to add more to the plate.

On the days I have minimal items in the fridge, I just heat the meatballs up with some pasta sauce and cheese, it makes swell good baked meatball meal.

On the days I have more items, I go a little further. This one for instance, I had heated up the meatballs, served with some butter corn and cous cous.

The cous cous is something that tastes really mild, a little like small pasta. With added butter, it tastes really soft and buttery, and is easily enhanced with vegetables like capsicum, cherry tomatoes and cucumber. There are some recipes that would tell you to just add hot water or stock onto the cous cous and let it sit and fluff up for ten minutes.

However I prefer the sautee method below, a little extra work, but great difference taste-wise.

Firstly, heat some butter in a pan. Add chopped onion, stir and allow it to cook till soft. Next add in chopped garlic, and add cous cous. Season with salt and black pepper. Give it a nice stir. Next you can add chicken stock or just water. Bring it to boil, and turn off the heat. Cover it and let it sit for 5 minutes. Then, you can remove the cover, fluff it up, and add cucumber and coriander/parsley as you please. The cous cous is ready to be served!

The best thing about cous cous is that it makes a great side dish to your protein laden meals. You can add your favourite vegetables. During the point of sautee, you can add red capsicum, mushroom or cherry tomatoes. For such vegetables, give it some time to sautee before adding in the cous cous. You can also play around with the seasonings and flavours, hopefully I get to try it one of these days.

Till then, happy trying!!