Patience In The Kitchen, or I Can't Do That

I've been trying the local Tunisian cuisine. It's hard to find. Like other urban areas, the local restaurants tend to specialize in exotic foods. Even Tunisians want something different when they eat out.

Two of the local specialties that I have found, tried and loved are the couscous and the brik. Couscous is a grain that is steamed with meat or vegetables and is served as a base for the dish that it was steamed over. Basically, you stew the meat or vegetables and the couscous is steamed by the food cooking below it. The couscous is served like rice, with the stewed food over it. Very yummy stuff. A Brik is a flaky French pastry that is filled with a savory mixture of meat and eggs and vegetables. The standard is served as an appetizer and has minced beef and an egg yolk inside. The pastry is deep fried and presented like a little envelope of goodness while you wait for your main dish. Delicious.

Being the bibliophile that I am, I perused the book section of Carrefour on Saturday morning. I looked through all the books, even though very few were written in a language that I understood. Luckily, there were a couple of books in English. Imagine my surprise when I saw two recipe books, small paperbacks labeled: "Pastillas and Bricks" and "Couscous and pleasures of semolina". I snatched them up.

Now, I can learn to cook these specialties at home. When I get my kitchen set up, I can test and cook these recipes until I've added a couscous dish and a brik to my repertoire. Quelle surprise!

This morning, while listening to an online lecture, I flipped through the cookbooks to admire the recipes and gorgeous pictures. Then I found myself reading the fine print.

Apparently, Mediterranean cooks spend a LOT of time in the kitchen. I'm not kidding.

In order to make a really good couscous, here's the pattern that every recipe follows:
1. Pre-cook some of the ingredients to brown the 'go with' vegetables like onions/mushrooms.
2. Add the broth and allow to come to a boil.
3. Take the semolina and put it in the steamer basket, sprinkle it with oil and water. Put it over the stewing food.
4. Take out the semolina and spread it on a flat plate, rubbing it between your hands to separate the grains. Sprinkle with oil and water. Let it rest. Return to the steamer.
5. Take out the semolina and spread it on the same flap plate, rub it between your hands again to separate out the grains. Sprinkle with oil water. Let it rest. Return to the steamer.
6. Take out the semolina and spread it on the serving tray, butter it and rub it between your hands to separate out the grains. Put the stewed food on top and garnish.

Do you see the amount of handling required on this? You have to separate the grains, by hand, at least three times and let the semolina 'rest' before putting it back over the steam. It doesn't matter whether you are making a serving for one or twenty people. It requires the same amount of handling.

This amount of cooking requires patience that I do not have in the kitchen. I generally won't even make yeast breads because you have to do a lot of work, leave it set, and then come back and work it again. I want to do cooking and/or preparation and then cook it! I don't want to do something that becomes an all day marathon of cookery. Apparently, couscous falls into that category. Along with making tamales from scratch.

So, I picked up the brik cookbook and decided this is going to be more my speed. Really, layers of prepared pastry stuffed with savory food? It's got to be quick preparation... doesn't it? I'm imagining buying boxes of frozen Filo dough and keeping it on hand.

The first page of the book describes how to make the pastillas from scratch. That's right, how you make the thin dough that you use four and five layers of for each of these briks. They paint the dough onto the hot pan with a paintbrush! It's that thin. So, another all day cooking activity in order to set yourself up to make the few dishes in this paperback cookbook.

I don't think I have the patience for this. Unless this couscous and dough comes precooked in the stores, I don't think you guys are going to get my home cooked Tunisian fare. I don't have the patience for this much food preparation.

--Sandee Wagner