I whipped this super-quick, easy and gorgeous meal up one busy week night, after realising I’d forgotten to get meat out to defrost in time for dinner (what’s new…). This dish was so good the girls at work got food envy when watching me eat the leftovers for lunch, so I handed over the recipe. They loved it too.I love having prawns in the freezer as they defrost in minutes (perfect for working Mums),they are versatile, yummy and perhaps best of all, healthy. The cinnamon worked beautifully in the source with the cumin and the chilli – this’ll will be a regular for us. Also, a bonus: If you (like me) are calorie-conscious, this is a perfect mid week, go-to recipe, that won’t make your jeans shrink! Enjoy… x
Serves 4 Cook time – 20 mins
Ingredients
1 c couscous
1c stock (I just used Maggi dried chicken stock, dissolved in 1 cup of boiling hot water)
1 tlb olive oil
1 onion – diced (red or white, doesn’t matter)
½ tsp salt
½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp dried chilli flakes
½ tsp ground cumin
1 red (or green) capsicum diced
1 medium zucchini – diced
½ medium carrot – diced
*Large handful chopped spinach/silver beet (or even baby spinach leaves)
20 prawns (frozen and defrosted is fine – I just put some hot water on for a few minutes)
1 can tomatoes (I used Watties ‘Savoury Tomatoes’)
2 tsp sugar
Juice of half a lemon
Black pepper (freshly ground)
*Chopped coriander (to serve) – optional
- Boil the jug. Make the stock. Put couscous in a heat-proof container with a firm fitting lid. Add the stock to the couscous. Put the lid on and forget about it until you’ve made the sauce.
- Cover your frozen prawns in hot water. Leave to one side to defrost.
- Using a medium sized frying pan, heat the olive oil over a medium heat. Add onion and fry gently over a medium heat until almost translucent, stirring periodically. Add salt, cinnamon, cumin and chilli. Continue to fry gently and stir until starting to go brown.
- Add all the vegetables, cook for another couple of minutes. If the mixture starts to go a little dry, just add a tablespoon of water.
- When vegetables start to go soft, add the tomatoes and the sugar. The sugar is vital: Tomatoes carry a lot of acidity, the sugar balances this out beautifully and gives a delicious depth to the sauce.
- Drain the water from your (now defrosted) prawns. Add to the tomato mixture and keep stirring to heat through. Add some black pepper (couple of grinds will do it). If you are adding spinach – add this too. Once the prawns are warmed through, remove pan from the heat.
- Back to the couscous, fluff this up with a fork and squeeze the lemon juice over it. Season it if you like (you could also add pinenuts, or chopped cashews, herbs, or even apricots at this stage).
- Plate up! Dish up the couscous and top with your delicious tomato and prawn sauce. Add coriander if you like…. Yum! In the pic I fried up some haloumi and added this at the end. This was a great addition but skip this if you are short on time (but it was worth the extra 3 minutes!). If you want to know how to cook haloumi, let me know! So, Did you make it? What did you think? I’d love your feedback!
Did you enjoy?
Lou x
