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Cùscusu di Pesce alla Trapanese

Cùscusu di Pesce alla Trapanese reads allium 4.4, salinity 3.6 and nutty 3.5 on Palate's 0–10 flavor X-ray — a Italian · Sicily main, about 2 hr 52 min. Measured from the recipe itself: ingredients and technique.

The flavor X-ray — six axes, 0–10

The measured notes (of 18)

Allium 4.4 · Salinity 3.6 · Nutty 3.5 · Richness 3.1 · Herbaceous 2.3 · Warm Spice 2.3 · Sourness 2.0 · Fruity 2.0 · Sweetness 1.9 · Bitterness 1.7 · Heat 1.6 · Marine & Briny 1.4 · Umami 1.3 · Earthy 1.2 · Floral 1.0 · Citrus 0.6

What's in it (15)

Time & effort: about 2 hr 52 min (2 hr 32 min active) · effort: involved

Nutrition (per 100 g, engine-estimated): 65.7 kcal, 2.3 g protein, 1 g fat, 11.8 g carbs

Dietary: Contains meat · Contains seafood — engine-derived; double-check anything allergy-critical.

How it's cooked (7 steps)

  1. Make the couscous by hand, which the Trapanesi call incocciare. Put the semolina in a wide earthenware or steel bowl, wet your fingertips in the cold water and work the grain in slow circles with the flat of your hand, adding water a few drops at a time. Keep going for 20 to 25 minutes: the grain gathers into tiny beads the size of a pinhead. Sieve out and re-roll anything larger. Spread the beads on a cloth to dry for 15 minutes.
  2. Make the broth. Warm 60 ml of the oil in a wide pan and cook the onion over medium-low heat for 10 minutes until soft. Add the garlic, almonds, chilli and cinnamon and cook 2 minutes more, until the almonds smell toasted. Add the tomatoes, bay and half the parsley with 1 tsp of the salt and the pepper, and simmer 10 minutes.
  3. Add the fish whole and 1.5 litres of hot water. Simmer, uncovered, for 25 minutes, skimming the grey foam off in the first five. Lift out the fish, pick every scrap of flesh off the bones and reserve it; return the heads and bones to the pot and simmer 15 minutes longer, then strain the broth through a sieve, pressing hard. You should have about 1.5 litres of amber, faintly sweet broth.
  4. Season the couscous. Toss the dried beads with the remaining 40 ml oil, the remaining 1 tsp salt and the rest of the parsley until every grain is separate and glossy.
  5. Steam it. Line the top of a couscoussiera or any steamer with a damp cloth, pile in the couscous without packing it, and set it over a pan of simmering water. Seal the join between the two pots with a rope of flour-and-water paste so no steam escapes at the seam. Steam 60 minutes, forking the grain through once at the halfway mark.
  6. Tip the steamed couscous into a warmed bowl and ladle over about two-thirds of the hot broth, a little at a time, waiting for each addition to be drunk before adding the next. Cover with a heavy cloth and leave it to swell for 20 minutes off the heat; this rest, the abbuttunata, is what makes the grain tender rather than gritty.
  7. Fold the reserved fish and the raw prawns through the couscous, cover again for 5 minutes so the prawns cook in the residual heat, and serve with the remaining broth in a jug at the table for people to wet their own plates.

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Every number above is Palate's engine-measured estimate, computed from this recipe's ingredients and techniques — not human-tasted ratings or reviews.