[TexasMom]

Hello! Everyone's been so helpful and sharing great brown rice ideas I thought I'd ask what this is. I saw it a the store the other night and in my WW book, but is it a pasta or a grain, like rice? What's it taste like? Also, there were two versions of it. One was kind of creamy looking, like oatmeal, and the other looked more like rice, individual "grains" or whatever. Any opinions on which is better?

Check me out, expanding my horizons with brown rice and couscous!

[Itryharder]

Couscous is a tiny pasta. The great thing about it is that it cooks so quickly and is very simple to make. I use LF chicken broth to cook it in and I like it a lot. As far as creamy vs grainy--I have no experience with that.
I also know there was a great thread not too long ago about different ways to vary the flavor. You might want to check it out.

[Lin S]

Hi,

Couscous is really big in the middle east. I've found some really good recipes by checking out cookbooks that focus on the entire Mediterranean region, including North Africa. Also, you might check out the web site for Gourmet and Bon Appetit magazines. They both have recipes using this grain and they're usually very simple, which is not what people think when they hear those magazine's titles.

Lin

[Bumby]

I only know of two kinds of couscous, the usual kind and "pearl" couscous. The usual couscous is grainy like rice, but also like rice can be persuaded to stick together at least briefly. Perhaps if you cooked it in some sort of creamy stuff it would be creamier, but I can't imagine it being like oatmeal. It doesn't have all that soluble fiber like oatmeal or barley that causes it to become sort of semi-solid. It's just tiny bits of pasta. However, it does take on flavors well, from whatever you want to cook it with--broth, vegetable soup mix, whatever.

Pearl couscous is larger sized pasta balls--like the size of tapioca pearls. It makes a nice change from the usual couscous. The brand I've found is "Casbah." The instructions call for browning it first in a little oil and then cooking (quite a while) in broth or water. Therefore, it's not as easy as regular couscous which is, to me, like Minute Rice with class.