Couscous Cakes & Salad with Lemon-Balsamic Vinaigrette

I often find recipes that look too good to be true. The magazine, blog or book might display a beautiful photo and claim an easy recipe, but in reality the dish is terribly fiddly and near impossible without surgical tools or a team of sous chefs. The recipe's author might successfully manage the tricky flipping or careful stirring, perhaps, but I will never be able to fully recreate the delicate dish. Such, I thought, would be the case with these couscous cakes. They looked beautiful in the picture, and the recipe appeared quite straightforward. Simply stir together cooked couscous and eggs, stuff into measuring cups to form the shape, and then dunk into a frying pan. But I knew it couldn't be so simple; there were simply too many opportunities for the cakes to fall apart, casting tiny kernels of couscous across the kitchen. Contrary to my fears, however, the recipe really was quite easy and manageable. The cakes held together just as the recipe claimed they would, and tasted just as gorgeous and complex as they looked.

The first trial was scooping the couscous mixture into 1/4 cup measuring cups and then unmolding them onto a plate while the pan heated up. The mixture, as you can see above, stayed together very neatly, giving me little towers of grain. The next not-so-challenging task was flipping the cakes in the pan. And once I realised that I needed to give the cakes enough time on one side to really crisp up, flipping was a breeze, as the cakes kept their shape very willingly.

The salad accompanying the cake is really a free-for-all; put whatever you'd like in it. I had basil in the couscous recipe, so I went with Italian flavours in the salad; tomatoes and artichokes, with a lemon-balsamic vinaigrette. The vinaigrette was lovely and tart, very refreshing on the summer evening and a nice compliment to the lightly fried cakes.

Adapted from Fine Cooking's couscous cakes.

Couscous Cakes & Salad with Lemon-Balsamic Vinaigrette

Ingredients for Cakes:
3/4 cup couscous

1/2 cup canned chickpeas, rinsed and drained

1 large clove garlic, peeled and finely chopped
1 TBSP dried basil
2 large eggs
zest of one lemon

salt and pepper

olive oil for the pan

Ingredients for Salad:

8 oz. baby greens, rinsed

14-oz jar of marinated artichoke hearts, chopped

1/2 cup cherry tomatoes, halved

handful of bean sprouts

Ingredients for Dressing:

2 TBSP lemon juice
5 TBSP olive oil
4 TBSP balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper

Directions:

--Bring to a boil 1 cup water. Pour over couscous and let sit 4-5 minutes.

--Mash chickpeas with a fork (or chop in a food processor). Mix with garlic, basil, lemon zest and 1 tsp salt until combined. Lightly whisk eggs and add to chickpeas along with couscous. Press mixture into a 1/4 cup measuring cup, and invert onto a plate. Repeat with remaining mixture; batter should make approximately 9 cakes.

--Heat 1 1/2 TBSP olive oil in a frying or nonstick pan over medium heat. Using a spatula, transfer couscous patties to pan, as many as your pan fits at one time. Flatten cakes to about 3/4 inch thick and cook until brown and patty stays together, about 4 minutes. Flip and cook until other side is browned. Transfer to paper towel-lined plate. Add 1 1/2 TBSP more oil and cook remaining cakes.

--Assemble salad. Put greens in bowl and scatter artichokes, tomatoes and bean sprouts over salad greens. Whisk together dressing ingredients, adding salt and pepper to taste, and pour over greens. Gently toss.

--Serve salad with couscous cakes on top or on the side. I let the dinner guests add as many as they wanted from a side platter, but it could be quite pretty to place them directly in the bowl of salad as well.