Some dishes travel with you and are good in many places … Though they don’t jump into luggage by themselves. You pack them mentally; take the building blocks. You will them to come. This couscous has been on a few holidays of late. It went canoeing down the Glenelg River in 2023, and to the summit of Mount Feathertop in 2024. Where there are good times and adventure, there is couscous!?
I made sure it wasn’t left behind when we went on holiday to Flinders Island in April. Worried we might be faced with a lack of ingredients mid Bass Strait, I packed tinned tomatoes and couscous (plus a pantry worth of other stuff). I needn’t have – the island is a world unto itself, and the local supermarket is fully stocked.
I have a family connection on Flinders Island … My uncle and aunty settled there in the late 1970s. Living in Melbourne, Mick and Mim were looking for a place to move to in the country. Mim saw an advert in The Weekly Times for a property on Flinders Island, which was a little further afield than planned. It was an old ad, but still she wrote a letter, and eventually heard back. A date was made to fly across in summer, and they ended up buying the property.
Mim and Mick raised their two children on the island. My family visited a handful of times when I was young, and the place stayed with me (and had the same effect on my brother). Life was so different there; the nature pristine.
Mim baked bread and whipped up meals like someone who had cooking in her veins (her family migrated from Slovenia and Italy). She was a total marvel to me. Our cousins were home-schooled, which to my teenage brain didn’t look so marvellous … But on their doorstep were deserted beaches with lichen-stained boulders, and mountains out the back. Wallabies and wombats roamed under the she-oaks, and then there was the ocean, teeming with unseen fish. Our cousins’ childhoods were punctuated with events like a banjo shark giving birth to many baby sharks, which they rescued from the shallows with their hands. And a privileged visit to Big Dog Island, helping local indigenous people harvest mutton birds from their burrows. They studied hard, and my cousin Ben was a champion knitter, creating legions of perfect little toys. By comparison, my brother Dave and I whiled away our teenage days in Warrnambool eating lots of two-minute noodles and cinnamon doughnuts after school, watching TV, playing basketball in the driveway, and rollerblading around the block.
This year, Dave and I and our families (eight of us) went back after a 30-odd-year gap. We stayed at Mim’s house – she no longer lives there, but still owns the house, and it is amazingly just as it was. I was thrilled to be baking bread and cooking in Mim’s kitchen, and exploring all her cupboards and recipe books. My awe for my aunty deepened as I unearthed her bread tins, marble rolling pin, fancy cake moulds, antique balance scales and so much more. Perhaps the best equipped kitchen I have ever been in, albeit on a remote corner of an almost unknown island.
We met so many interesting locals, climbed mountains, explored beaches, snorkelled, collected shells, fossicked for gemstones, and dabbled in the kind of fishing that makes all future fishing seem pointless. We caught and ate flathead, trevally, squid, mackerel, abalone. I think we’ll be going back.
Tomato couscous
You can serve this flavoursome couscous in so many ways, with infinite combinations of protein and vegetables. You could go for grilled haloumi, roast lamb or chicken, fresh seafood or tinned tuna (chilli tuna is great – a camping fave). For vegetables, you could pan-fry zucchini with garlic or cook cauliflower, broccoli or fennel your favourite way, or make a salad (the Sicilian-style salad below is rather good). It also goes unexpectedly well with mint chutney.
Note: The recipe began with one from the book Jerusalem by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi. Yotam is Jewish; Sami Palestinian – there is heritage and fusion throughout their book (if only Israel, Gaza and West Bank boasted this kind of peace). The couscous comes from Sami’s family. Here it is scaled up to give enough for leftovers, and also slightly simplified in ingredients and method.
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 onions, finely chopped, or 2 large leeks, finely sliced
800 g tinned diced tomatoes
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons sugar
2 cups couscous
60 g butter
black pepper
Heat the oil in a large saucepan over low–medium heat and add the onion or leek. Cook gently until soft and collapsed (about 15 minutes). If using leek, this may take a little longer.
Add the tomatoes, salt and sugar to the pan. Rinse out the tomato tin with a small splash of water and also add to the pan. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to medium and simmer for around 20 minutes, until the sauce is thick and no longer watery (it should look chunky with onion or leek).
While the sauce is cooking, put the couscous in a medium bowl and pour over 1 cup of boiling water. Quickly stir (the couscous will almost instantly absorb the water), then scrape down the sides of the bowl and put an upturned plate on top as a lid. Set aside.
When you are happy with the tomato sauce, turn off the heat and add the butter and plenty of black pepper. Stir until the butter has melted. Use a metal spoon to scrape the couscous into the pan, separating the grains. Stir the couscous into the tomato sauce until well combined. Flatten the surface of the couscous without compacting it down too much. Cover with a lid and return to low heat. Cook for about 10 minutes, or until there is lots of steam when you lift the lid. Allow to sit for 10 minutes before serving. There should be a gentle crust on the bottom of the pan.
Serves 6–8
Pan-fried kale, carrot and celery with FEnnel and currants
This Sicilian-style salad was concocted while on our holiday to Flinders Island, starting with a bunch of locally grown kale. I served it with tomato couscous and some abalone we caught (sliced finely, sauteed with garlic and finished with a squeeze of lemon). I’m sure this combination will never be repeated! But the salad is wonderful with many things and can be eaten hot or cold. The carrot and celery element is part soft, part crunchy with a beautiful nip of vinegar, and the red onion is just briefly cooked so it stays vibrant.
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 large celery stalks, sliced
1 large carrot, finely sliced
2 garlic cloves, finely sliced
1½ tablespoons red-wine or sherry vinegar
salt
1 bunch kale (any variety)
½ red onion, finely sliced
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
2 tablespoons currants
Heat a frying pan over medium heat and add half of the oil, plus the celery, carrot and garlic. Saute for 5 minutes, then tip into a salad bowl and mix in the vinegar and ½ teaspoon of salt.
Wash the kale and remove the tough lower stems of each leaf (you can either use a knife or your hand, depending what variety of kale you have. With Tuscan kale or cavolo nero, you have to cut out the stems, but for some curly varieties, you can just run your fingers down the stem to detatch the leaves). Roll the leaves up in a bundle and slice.
Reheat the frying pan and add the remaining oil. Add the kale and saute for a few minutes until wilted. Add the onion, fennel seeds, currants and ½ teaspoon of salt and keep cooking until the onion is still brightly coloured but just softened, entangled with the kale. Scrape into the bowl with the carrot and celery. Stir and adjust the seasoning as desired. Serve either hot or cold.
Serves 4