Israeli Couscous with Mushrooms

This isn’t the one I’m going to plant my flag in, but it’s really just a cheap and effective (and let’s be honest, delicious) side dish that you can bring to someone’s barbeque or house and let them be impressed. Despite previous rants to against the stuff, truffle oil does have its uses, if they’re judicious, and this is one of them. You certainly don’t need it, but this is one of the places that I do use it.

There are, without a doubt, endless variations on this, and equally without doubt, some creative and delicious ones. But if I have to put together a quick side that’s a pleasant alternative to supermarket deli pasta salad, this will be it.

Ingredients:

• 8 oz Israeli couscous
• 16 oz cremini mushrooms, stems trimmed and cut into wedges (either quarters or sixths, depending on the size of the cap)
• ¼ cup chicken stock
• 2 TBS butter
• 1 medium shallot, minced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• ¼ cup olive oil
• One small handful fresh parsley leaves, minced
• Truffle oil
• Salt and pepper

Directions:

Place a pot of water on high heat and when it arrives at a boil, salt generously and add the couscous. Cook until just before it’s done – it will continue to cook after it’s been drained, so you want to drain it in the moment before it’s truly al dente for the best results.

Meanwhile, heat a large skillet on high heat and add the butter. When it’s foamy, add the mushrooms, garlic, and shallots. Season liberally with salt and pepper. To cook mushrooms like this, you want to give the cut side a chance to spend some meaningful contact with the bottom of the pan so that it caramelizes and develops a nice golden hue. You also want to make sure that as the mushrooms give up their water, it hits the pan and almost immediately evaporates. Like so many things in this collection, if you cook it at a low heat, it will release its water and that water won’t go anywhere – it will collect in the bottom of the pan, slowly simmering and steaming your food until it turns into mush. One of the other unshakeable rules of the kitchen is to know when to cook things at high heat and when to cook things at low heat. Even heating is always important of course, but every ingredient responds to heat differently, and it’s important to know how each ingredient you’re working with responds to high heat, low heat, direct contact with something hot, liquid heat, dry heat, etc, and it’s also important to understand what you’re trying to get out of everything, the character that each distinct ingredient will possess in the finished dish. A good example is this greens dish, where two types of heat are employed – understand that cooking them in water is a gentle way to cook them evenly, to remove the rawness and mellow some of the chlorophyll flavor, as well as to soften some of the tougher fibers, but that it will also dilute and leach out its essential flavors, which is why it must be kept brief; the high heat cooking in oil imparts a slightly more concentrated, sweeter version of the same flavor, as well as a harder or crispier texture to the exterior, both of which contrast pleasantly with the tender-but-firm middle. Cook it too long this way, and the outside overcooks or even burns before the middle is finished, so this phase, too, must be kept brief – but the two types of heat, properly applied, collude to achieve the desired character of the finished piece. In the case of this recipe, you want each piece of mushroom to be a plump little burst of concentrated richness and mushroom essence, which cannot be achieved by slowly leaching out all of its liquid at a low temperature. Put a nice sear on it and keep it moving.

So – cook the mushrooms on high heat, allowing each side to remain in contact with the bottom of the pan but giving it a toss every minute or two, for about 5 minutes, until the shallots are soft and the mushrooms have contracted somewhat. Add the chicken stock and cook, stirring frequently, until there are only small pieces of liquid clinging to the edges of the clusters of mushrooms. This is sometimes called a sec, which would literally mean “to dry”, or slightly less literally, “to the point of dryness” or “dried up”.

If the couscous has not finished cooking at this point, turn the heat off the mushrooms and let them rest until it has. If the couscous finished cooking before the mushrooms are done, drain it, return it to the pot and add the olive oil, salt, and pepper. Israeli couscous will clump up rather quickly, so you want to add the oil while it’s still hot and stir to thoroughly combine.

When the mushrooms and the couscous are finished, add the mushrooms to the couscous mixture, add the parsley, stir to combine thoroughly, then add truffle oil to taste. Every truffle oil is different – certainly from brand to brand, but even from bottle to bottle – so there’s no real way for me to indicate the amount. You want to impart a truffle essence to the whole thing but don’t want it to become too oily. So add a tablespoon or two, incorporate, evaluate, and keep going if necessary. Another word about truffle oil and a reason I generally keep my avoidance assiduous: check the ingredients when you buy – very often the truffle flavor is not imparted by actual truffles, and even more frequently, the oil is not even olive oil, and if it is, it is not necessarily extra virgin. The stuff is fairly ubiquitous these days and you don’t need to go to a specialty store to find it, but you can very easily walk out of a market having paid $14.95 for a tiny bottle of some sort of anonymous oil byproduct which has been refined to rob it of any foul flavors, and then re-flavored with some sort of chemical truffle approximation. Don’t do this, son. Buy extra virgin olive oil that has been flavored with truffles, ideally white, and ideally with a tiny piece of truffle sitting at the bottom of the bottle. Don’t forget that sunlight is the enemy of olive oil, so a dark glass or opaque container is also best.

This couscous dish can be served and is delicious warm, but it is equally good at room temperature. If you’ve prepared it in advance and refrigerated it in the interim, make sure you take it out of the fridge well enough in advance for it to attain room temperature, and give it a quick whip or two with a large spoon to make sure nothing has clumped together during its chilled hibernation. Enjoy the dish and the compliments.