Cou Cou Recipes

Steps:

• Combine the water or broth, olive oil and 1 teaspoon salt in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil. Stir in the couscous and immediately remove from the heat. Cover and let sit 5 minutes.
• Fluff the couscous thoroughly with a fork (the more you fluff, the more separate and light the grains will be). Season with salt and pepper. If you are making the couscous ahead, spread while hot on a baking sheet lined with parchment to stop the cooking as it cools. Once cool, refrigerate in an airtight container up to 5 days.

Steps:

• Put water to boil in a medium-size pot. Thinly slice okra and add to boiling water. Cook for 10 to 12 minutes, until soft. Lower the heat.
• Meanwhile, combine corn meal with cold water and mix well.
• Add corn mixture to the okra. Add salt.
• Mix well and cook on low, stirring constantly with a flat wooden spoon or "cou-cou stick".
• When mixture breaks away cleanly from the side of the saucepan, the cou-cou is ready.
• Butter a bowl, turn the mixture out neatly onto it, shaking it so that it takes on the shape of the bowl.
• Turn it out on to a serving dish, make an indentation in the top and place a knob of butter in it.
• What makes it unique and distinguishes it from its now more fashionable cousin the Italian polenta, is the addition of okra. In some islands, cou-cou is spiced up by peppers and yellow-butter.
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