Seared Shrimps and Parsley Couscous Salad

This meal is for one of those days when you can just sit back and relax and do the prep work and the meal right when you are about to eat. It is also good for bachelor nights.

First the Parsley Couscous Salad, which is of course Mediterranean-inspired.

Ingredients for Parsley Couscous Salad are:

1 bunch flat leaf parsley, very finely chopped
1 firm tomato, very finely chopped
1 small red onion, very finely chopped
1 cup cooked couscous ( I use the Israeli variety)
Lemon juice
Fresh cracked black pepper
Salt
EVOO

Mix everything together except the salt and couscous and keep in the fridge. Just before you are about to eat, mix the couscous and salt and serve. Well, I haven’t written a shorter recipe than this. So…

As a last minute thought, I added some pomegranate leftover from the Fresh Fruit and Cream Cake. And the salad looked very Middle Eastern!

That being taken care of I just about had time to get my shrimps seared on my flat tava.

Ingredients for Seared Shrimps are:

400 grams shrimps, shelled, deveined and tail on
4-5 fat cloves of garlic, minced
1-2 teaspoons dry herb of your choice, I used oregano
Lemon juice
Freshly cracked pepper
Olive oil
Salt

Poke the shrimps on wooden skewers and keep them lined up. Remember to throw the bamboo skewers in water for about 20 minutes so that they don’t char or break in the heat.

Heat a tava or a flat skillet. Add little drizzles of oil, and the minced garlic. Sauté for a minute making sure not to brown the garlic. Add the dried herb. Mix.

Place the shrimps-on-skewers over the spices and let them sear on high heat. Turn the skewers midway. Sprinkle salt and pepper.

Remove the skewers from heat when you see the shrimps turning pink in color and curling up. It takes about 5-6 minutes to do the shrimps.

Finish the Seared Shrimps with a squirt of lemon juice.

All this under 30 minutes! I could give Rachel Ray a run for her money. Is anybody listening?

Mediterranean Night

Its not everyday that I make Mediterranean. So read carefully on how I created a simple dinner with a world of flavors – all of it straight from the Mediterranean.
I began by getting my basics right and listing all the ingredients for my grocery bag. Planning for a gourmet menu is a highly technical culinary skill not many have!
My husband loves pickled sweet peppers, that seemed pretty easy as all of the work was being done by a glassful of white vinegar!
Next was to marinade the meat – I planned on making Chicken Kabobs with some Greek-inspired spices. I mixed freshly squeezed lemon juice with ground ginger-garlic, coriander, cumin, black pepper, and cayenne pepper to get a marinade ready for my boneless chicken pieces. For flavor, I used dried oregano, a native of the Mediterranean region.  
A marinating time of about 5-6 hours turned the pieces of chicken into succulent bites full of flavor once they hit the broiler.

Eggplants are abundant in Mediterranean cuisine. For this free-style eggplant salad, which I’d like to call Ruffled Aubergine Salad, I used some very thinly sliced eggplants. Eggplants drink up lots of oil. In order to avoid that, I brushed them with extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) and tossed them in a hot pan.
I let them curl at the edges and get a good color on them. Once my eggplants were ready, I let them cool and prepared the dressing, the key ingredient for which was parsley.
Parsley is like the Miss Congeniality of the Mediterranean world. Its mild flavor is essential to many salads and garnishes. I used the Italian flat leaf variety.
I tossed finely chopped parsley, lemon juice, EVOO, fresh cracked pepper and very little salt and mixed it all with the eggplant making a quick, free-style relish to go with my Chicken Kebobs and my main which was also a salad or sorts – the Couscous Arugula Salad.  

Do you know why couscous is named what it is. Because it  is a food so good, they named it twice! This salad is a great getaway from serving rice or pasta or noodles for dinner. Its a versatile dish, easy enough for a weeknight dinner and elegant enough to serve when you have guests over.

For the couscous salad too, I kept it simple with some chopped white onion, lots of arugula, some crumbled feta cheese, EVOO, lemon juice and salt and pepper. Oh yes, and I added a touch of exotica with a handful of kalamata olives. I used the Israeli couscous, even after cooking it in hot water, it had an al dente feel to it. A right toss of these ingredients and you have a star. I did not add any fresh herbs to the Couscous Arugula Salad as I did not want to want to overwhelm the feta and olives with any dominating flavor. Plus the peppery taste of the arugula has to be enjoyed on its own.
This Mediterranean dinner looked so good, I did not know whether to have a picture taken with it or eat it. Without much deliberation, I decided on the latter. After all, a Bengali does not make Ruffled Aubergine Salad, Chicken Kabobs and Couscous Arugula Salad everyday.