Israeli Couscous & Cheese -- Easy Mac & Cheese Recipe Using Israeli Couscous

Hello , this is Chef John from food wishes dot com with Israeli Couscous and cheese .

That's right .

Another installment in our never ending Search for new and interesting side dishes .

And here I'm kind of combining couscous risotto mac and cheese and a little bit of what the hell is he thinking ?

But you know what I thought it came out really good .

All right .

So here we go , you're gonna need some of this Israeli couscous and yes , it is way , way bigger than regular cous cose , but basically the same idea .

It's not a grain .

It's like a little pasta .

So apparently Israel is like the Texas of couscous loving nations .

And you see the color there , it's actually lightly toasted .

And what we're gonna do is we're going to measure out a cup and I'm gonna throw that in a deep sided saute pan .

That's a 10 inch pan if you're scoring at home and we're gonna dump that in there with just a little bit of melted butter on medium heat and we're just gonna give it a little extra toasting before we add our liquid .

And this is totally optional .

But I think it does give a little certain something .

So I don't wanna brown it , it's just gonna turn like one shade more golden .

So that looks awesome .

We're gonna go ahead and dump in our liquid , which I'm using chicken stock .

Of course , this will work with vegetable stock or in a pinch .

Just plain water .

Now , this particular chicken stock I'm using was already seasoned .

So I'm not gonna add any salt at this point , but you'll have to figure that out yourself .

And once we have the stock , we can go ahead and crank the heat up to high because we want to bring this up to a simmer .

And when it does come up to a simmer , we're gonna back the heat down and we're just gonna let that cook for about 67 minutes , right .

This stuff cooks pretty fast .

So after about six minutes that cous coo starts absorbing all that stock .

It starts to plump up a little bit .

All right .

And it's gonna look something like that and we're about three or four minutes away from being finished at this point .

I'm gonna turn the heat to medium and I'm gonna add some diced red Pimento .

By the way , is there another color Pimento ?

Anyway , I'm gonna dump in some Pimento and then some heavy cream .

So no beams here .

Just a little shot of real heavy cream .

Give that a stir .

I'm also gonna give it a shot at Cayenne Pepper because I need to to survive .

And then here's the deal .

You wanna cook this for a couple of minutes until your cous cous is tender or as tender as you want it .

Now , of course , you're gonna taste and check as you go , especially if you've never worked with this before .

All right , if the sauce reduces before the pasta is cooked , give it a splash of liquid .

If the pasta is almost cooked and it's still a little too liquidy , crank up the heat and reduce , you know , the drill .

All right .

But right there , mine was perfect .

The liquid reduced .

So I had the texture I wanted and my little spheres of cous coo were just beautifully tender .

So at that point I'm gonna stop , I'm gonna turn off the heat .

I'm gonna throw in a handful of cheese .

I'm using white cheddar and orange cheddar .

All right .

That looks like a lot because I shredded it .

But it's only like three ounces .

We're gonna stir that in and look at those melty cheese strands pretty cool .

And as soon as the cheese is mixed in , you're pretty much done .

Although I do like to add a nice big pinch of chives and of course , chives are perfect for when you want a little bit of onion flavor .

It's also gonna look cool .

So we're gonna mix that in .

Of course you're gonna taste for seasoning if you don't know that by now .

Well , you probably just started watching these videos but you'll learn , we taste everything for seasoning at the end .

So that's what I'm doing here and it was good .

So I didn't need to adjust , but you probably will .

And that is , it is Israeli Cous cous and cheese .

If you're a Risotto fan , you'll probably like this .

If you're a Mac and Cheese fan , you'll definitely like this .

And if you're a cous cous fan , I have no idea .

This is really nothing like couscous anymore .

But regardless , it was very , very delicious , a really interesting side dish I thought and as you know , I'm not that great at describing things other than saying it's awesome or tastes great or it's delicious .

So you're gonna have to make this to experience the unusual and borderline fascinating textural experience that is , is really couscous and cheese .

So I really hope you give this a try head over to food wishes dot com for all the ingredient amounts and more info as usual .

And as always enjoy .