Israeli Couscous with Asparagus and Fresh Mushrooms

Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian is so great for browsing. When I have a particular vegetable to use, I can always find several possible dishes in it that each have different cultural influences. Last week I was a lucky winner of the Foodie Blogroll bi-weekly giveaway, and I was offered a product from FromTheFarm.com. I chose the hen of the woods, or maitake, mushrooms which were over-nighted in a cooler. I did feel some carbon guilt about receiving that package from Florida, but considering that a lot of my vegetables get trucked in from California, I tried not to dwell on it for too long (and a trip to the farmers’ market the next day made me feel better).

I wanted to use the hen of the woods mushrooms in a vegetarian dish, and Jaffrey’s Israeli couscous sounded perfect. I make several variations of pasta with sauteed vegetables, but for this dish, I followed along with the instructions to try a different approach. Something I make pretty regularly for weeknight meals is broccoli with penne. For that, I blanch broccoli and then saute it with sliced garlic, a lot of extra virgin olive oil, and black pepper. When the penne is added to that, it receives some butter, and it’s served with a snowy cap of shredded parmigiano reggiano. Delicious, yes, but there’s lots of oil and butter. For this couscous dish, Jaffrey suggested sauteing garlic and shallot in some olive oil and then adding the mushrooms and then the chopped asparagus. This cooked briefly before a half cup of stock and a quarter cup of vermouth were added. The saute pan was covered, and it was left for a couple of minutes. Then, almost-fully-cooked couscous was added, it was stirred to combine, and then parmigiano reggiano and parsley were incorporated.

The result was a lighter dish in which the stock and vermouth were absorbed by the pasta pearls. The parts of this simple dish worked together exactly correctly. The vegetables were left crisp tender and fresh tasting, and the flavor of the maitakes was superb. The amount of vermouth used was enough to add another layer of flavor but not enough to leave it boozy. The vermouth and stock together was just the right amount of liquid for the couscous to absorb without making the dish like soup. I added a bit more garlic than what was listed, I usually do that, and combined with the shallot, it was fantastic. This would work nicely with orzo and other vegetable combinations too. Now I have one more delicious, and lighter, way of preparing pasta and vegetables.

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