Making Couscous

Every Friday in Morocco families gather to celebrate their most revered day of the week. Often extended family comes to munch on a delicious serving of couscous usually topped with chicken, beef, or lamb and veggies doused with a tasty broth.

In one of my Dances with Wolves moments, I decided to find out the source of this scrumptious meal. I wondered, "Does couscous grow on trees? Does it rain from heaven like mana?"  I needed to know. Thankfully, one of our fellow volunteers knew the path to the origins of couscous. I and several other never-miss-a-couscous Friday convert took the pilgrimage to Khoukhate, a small village near Zaida that had begun teaching the steps to reaching a culinary nirvana of couscous making.

Khoukhate is a small valley of green with nothing but an arid wilderness to one side and towering desert plateaus to the other. When climbing onto the plateaus surrounding the village, it appears as if the ground level plane suddenly collapsed and the spring that gives this village its life carved out a beautiful and bountiful oasis. So bountiful, according to the locals, that the village for the most part is self-sustaining producing its own fruits, vegetables, and staple cereals like corn and wheat. Both the men and women labor in the fields, but when it comes to preparing the labor-intensive, time-consuming, but utterly gratifying couscous, the women take over.

There are many pre-packaged couscous varieties at the market that can be put immediately onto a couscoussiére, steamed, and served within a couple of hours. Couscous being such a central part of Moroccan tradition, I felt I needed to learn how to make it from scratch. Back in my home-stay, my host family gave me a five-minute step-by-step guide to make couscous, but I was not able to practice partly because I would have been the only guy with a roomful of older ladies toiling away on the flour. Not that I mind hanging out with older ladies, but at that particular point I was just getting to know my family and trying to understand the nuances of Moroccan culture and gender roles; so instead, I went out in typical Moroccan fashion with my younger host brother to a café to pass the time people watching until it was time to eat.

Whenever we would get back, I would pig out on the couscous as usual sometimes forgoing the meat that everyone sought out for more couscous. Sometimes I felt that I was in a couscous eating contest, but I wasn’t doing it to win any prize; it was pure self-motivation. To make things worse, when the family saw me slowing down, they aided and abetted my gluttony by adding more broth to my couscous so that it could go down easier and then offering the customary bssHa(To your health) as I stuffed my face.

Needless to say, I’m a fan. Back in the states, I purchased the 5-minute pre-steamed variety to spur things up a bit as a substitute for rice. I enjoyed it then; however now that I’ve had the real thing cooked Moroccan style, I’m hooked. Not wanting to revert back to the 5-minute boxed couscous, I went out to Khokuhate to learn the craft of couscous making alongside other couscous fans.

A group of fellow PCVs got together at the Association Ennahda for our couscous making class. The women's association with the help of a PCV is looking to draw tourists and study abroad groups interested in learning about Moroccan culture and experiencing it first-hand.

The association hosts the cooking classes, sells a whole wheat herb-infused couscous, zmita, and different types of jams. To learn more about the association, please click on the associations link above.

The association's president, who was going to lead the class, had already gathered the pots, pans, sifter, meats, veggies, spices, and Khoukhate's own milled whole wheat flour.

She poured the flour onto the ceramic couscous serving dish. Then slowly began sprinkling a bit of warm semi-salty water throughout swirling the flour with her other hand as it began to clump up.

Once there were enough clumps, she got sifter to separate the clumps from the flour. The clumps were then dumped onto several water reed baskets, which we all began pressing and rolling in

classic Karate Kid 'wax on, wax off' style adding a bit of flour from time to time so the granules would not stick together.

Then when the clumps were pretty much

gone, we dumped our baskets onto a sifter so that the sifter could filter out the right size couscous granules.

We repeated the process until we felt we had enough for a couscous feast.

Then, all the rolled and sifted couscous was put into a couscoussiére, kind of a two-tier type pot where chicken and veggies are boiled in the bottom pot while the couscous rests on the top tier pot, which is designed to allow the steam to seep in through its perforated base making it possible for the couscous granules to get nice a steam bath.

After 30 or so minutes, there was a gap between the couscous and all around the edge of the pot, which meant that it was time to fluff it out. The couscous was dumped onto the ceramic serving dish. After a thorough hand wash, I dug in and began to fluff the couscous.

The purpose of the fluff, of course, is to loosen the couscous so it doesn't become one big massive pasta ball and to move it around so all the couscous granules can get a better steam bath. This process was repeated three times.

Once the couscous was done, the chicken and veggies were cooked through, and the broth was ready, a little saffron was added to the couscous and then placed on the large ceramic couscous serving dish(I'm sure it has a name, but I can't recall it at the moment). The chicken came next, then the veggies, and finally a bit of broth was poured all around.

We quickly said our grace, which in Morocco is a simple Bismillah (In the name of God), and then dug in. A few of us tried to pick up the traditional way of eating couscous, which involves grabbing a bit and moving it and rotating it around to create a small couscous ball that you then pop into your mouth or use to start a couscous fight.

As usual I stuffed myself, but was outdone by fellow PCV Steven who claimed the title of last man standing. All in all it was a great learning experience. My hope is to replicate it in the States Inshallah (God willing) so y'all can partake of what I plan to make a tradition of mine: couscous stuffing Fridays.