This month we published a good share of recipes, among those from Giada De Laurentiis, others from our Chef Network, and a couple more from the Chef team at the Academia Barilla Culinary School, but we didn’t forget about also browsing the Academia Barilla Gastronomic Library (BIGAB) for recipes, where we generally get great inspirations.
Summertime brought to our minds fresh, sunny, Southern Italian seafood dishes, and we stumbled upon a great cookbook, Chef Giuliano Bugialli’s “Foods of Sicily, Sardinia and the smaller islands” (1996, Rizzoli International Publications). We often talk about Chef Bugialli’s “Parma” cookbook, edited by Academia Barilla and available at the Academia Barilla online store, but we like also Chef Bugialli’s exploration of further Italian regional traditional cuisines.
Today’s recipe comes from Trapani, Sicily: Couscous alla Trapanese (Couscous Old Trapani Style). Couscous is a typical Arab dish, imported into the food culture of Southern Mediterranean countries more than a 1,000 years ago. Traditionally, Arab couscous is made with meat and vegetables, but the unique Tunisian version of couscous is made entirely with fish and seafood.
The proximity of Trapani, Sicily, and Tunis, Tunisia, and the commercial and social exchanges that intertwined the two cities over the centuries, allowed a fusion of some cultural topics from architecture to fishing style and, obviously, to food. Trapani is less than 300 miles away from Tunis, and some of the Sicilian minor islands, such as Pantelleria and Lampedusa are even closer, as you can see in the Google Map below.
Trapani absorbed the Tunisian couscous culture (and vice-versa), adding its own Sicilian touch to a typical Arab dish. The Sicilian Couscous alla trapanese is a main course, and its unusual feature is that fish and chicken are combined in the same dish, a duo sometimes found in Spain (Valencian Paella) but not in Italy. It has become very difficult to find authentic preparations of this dish because today Italians often omit the chicken.
Nowadays people rebel as much at the amount of work and time required to make real couscous as they do to make real polenta. Certainly precooked versions of these grains save time but it is important to understand that in using these precooked versions, the real flavor and texture of the dish are sacrificed.
Ready for the Couscous Old Trapani Style? This recipe requires a long preparation time.
COUSCOUS ALLA TRAPANESE
(Couscous Old Trapani Style)
A recipe by Chef Giuliano Bugialli
(Dish picture by John Dominis)
INGREDIENTS FOR THE SAUCE
- 1 large red onion, cleaned and coarsely chopped
- 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1 1/2 pounds blanched and seeded tomatoes, cut into large pieces
- about 2 pounds fish heads and tails, wrapped in cheesecloth
- salt and freshly ground black pepper
- a large pinch of hot red pepper flakes
- 20 sprigs Italian parsley, leaves only
- 6 large cloves garlic, peeled
- 10 very large fresh basil leaves, left whole
- 4 tablespoons tomato paste
- 3 cups completely defatted chicken broth, preferably homemade
INGREDIENTS FOR THE FISH AND CHICKEN
- 6 medium-sized calamari (about 1/2 pounds), cleaned and cut into 1/2 inch rings
- 2 pounds of different types of non-oily fish, cut into large pieces, with bone (Langoustine, the small lobsters, are optional)
- 1 large lemon
- coarse-grained salt
- 1 chicken (about 3 pounds), cut into 10 pieces, with all the extra fat removed
INGREDIENTS FOR THE COUSCOUS (NOT PRECOOKED)
- 1 pound couscous
- salt to taste
- 1/2 cup lukewarm water
- a large pinch of ground saffron
- 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 5 large bay leaves
INGREDIENTS FOR PRECOOKED COUSCOUS
Follow the procedure printed on the box, adding oil, not butter, as well the bay leaves and ground saffron listed above.
INGREDIENTS FOR THE BROTH
- 4 quarts very light chicken broth, preferably homemade
- 4 bay leaves
- a large pinch of ground saffron
- 4 medium-sized carrots, scraped and cut into large pieces
INGREDIENTS TO SERVE
- 3 or 4 langoustine for decoration (optional)
- 15 sprigs Italian parsley, leaves only, coarsely chopped
PREPARATION
Soak the chopped onion pieces in a bowl of cold water for 1/2 hour. Soak the calamari and fish pieces in a large bowl of cold water with the lemon, cut in half and squeezed, and a little coarse salt for 1/2 hour.
If you are making your own couscous, place the (not precooked) grain in a large bowl. Add salt to the water along with the saffron and start adding the water by tablespoonfuls while constantly rubbing the grains between the palms of your hands. Do not add extra water until the previous tablespoonful has been completely absorbed by the grain and uniformly distributed. When all the water is used up, oil your palms and again rub the grains. Keep repeating until all the oil is used up.
Place the 4 quarts of broth along with the bay leaves, saffron and carrots in a stockpot and bring to a boil over medium heat. Line a colander with a thick cheesecloth then mix the prepared couscous with the bay leaves and put it in the prepared colander.
Fold the cheesecloth over the top and insert the colander in the stockpot containing the boiling broth. Tightly cover the colander with a lid or with aluminium foil. If you have a lot of space between the stockpot and the colander, you can seal it by wrapping a kitchen towel dampened in cold water all around or you can make a dough with flour and water, and attach it all around the opening in order to keep the steam from coming out (the dough method is Sicilian and probably older than the cloth method). Let simmer for 1 hour.
Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large casserole over medium heat. When the oil is warm, drain the onions and add them to the casserole; sauté for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Add the tomatoes and cook for 15 minutes, stirring every so often with a wooden spoon. Add the fish heads and tails with their cheesecloth wrapping and cook for 15 minutes, turning the “bags” over 2 or 3 times. Season with salt, pepper and the hot pepper flakes.
Finely chop parsley and garlic together on a board. Add the chopped ingredients along with the whole basil leaves to the casserole, mix very well and cook for 5 minutes more. Dissolve the tomato paste in the broth and pour it into casserole. Lower heat and simmer for 1 hour. The liquid should be reduced by half. Remove and discard the cheesecloth with all its fish bones.
Taste the sauce for seasoning. Start adding the fish that require at least 35 minutes of cooking time, such as calamari, to the broth. Add the other fish and chicken pieces that take less time as appropriate. The chicken will not take more than 20 minutes to cook.
Open the cheesecloth, mix the couscous very well to be sure no lumps have formed, then close it again and cook for 1 hour more.
When the sauce is ready and the fish and chicken are cooked, transfer the couscous to a large serving platter. Pour all the sauce over the couscous, arrange all the fish and chicken, with or without langoustine, on top and sprinkle with parsley. Serve hot.
CHEF TIPS FROM ACADEMIA BARILLA
To obtain a full Sicilian flavor, the Academia Barilla Chef Team suggests to use Academia Barilla’s Monti Iblei Sicilian extra virgin olive oil and Natural Sicilian Sea Salt with Black Olive Oils - they are both available at the Academia Barilla online store.
Buon Appetito!
A product approved by the Parmigiano Reggiano Consortium in Emilia Romagna, Italy, the Academia Barilla Parmigiano-Reggiano D.O.P. Cheese Spread brings to the Italian food lovers’ tables delicate notes of fresh milk, yogurt and honey, and a taste with intense sensation of Parmigiano-Reggiano. 
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