I got this recipe from a colleague of Akiko's. I've only made it once, but I think it's a winner.
Ingredients:
pearl couscous (a.k.a. Israeli couscous)
1 pomegranate
1 can mandarin orange slices
dried currants
vegetable oil
1. Split open the pomegranate and remove the seeds. I found cool directions for this on-line. As you're separating the seeds from the fibers inside the pomegranate shell, drop the seeds into a bowl of water. The fibers will float, while the seeds will sink. Then you can skim the fibers off and drain the water and you'll have mostly fiber-free seeds.
2. Make 1 cup of pearl couscous as per the directions. The stuff I had said: bring 1 and 1/4 cup water to a boil, add 1 cup couscous, simmer 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Optionally, add a little butter when you add the couscous. I didn't add butter, but maybe I should have.
3. When the couscous is done, transfer it to a bowl and stir it until it cools off. The idea here is to keep it from glopping up. The recipe says that when it starts to cool off add a little veggie oil; this is where I think cooking it with butter or oil might have helped, because no matter what I did it still ended up kind of sticky. The good news is, it was still good.
4. Stir in the pomegranate seeds.
5. Open the can of mandarin orange slices, drain, and stir in the slices. (Of course you could use fresh tangerine slices, too, if they're in season.)
6. Stir in a handful of dried currants. (Raisins are a good substitute if you can't find dried currants, but if you can, I think the currants match the pomegranate and mandarin orange a little better.)
7. Voila. You're done.
