Jamie Oliver has his mission on improving the quality of food that children eat in schools in the UK. I have my mission of improving the quality of the food that I eat at work. As a part of this I cooked up zucchini salads, chicken mince couscous salads, chicken pates, hummus with chicken mince. Then Pinku pointed out that meat was slowly creeping into my lunches. This is pertinent as I try to avoid meat at lunch at work given the high amount of meat one eats. So I went back to the drawing board and came up with this lovely mushroom cous cous salad.
Here’s the recipe:
- Put 250g chopped button mushroom, 50 g boiled sweet corn, some basil leaves, some pine nuts, half a chopped tomato, one finely chopped bird’s eye chilly, some olive oil, salt and Tabasco sauce in a micro plate
- Cook it for about 6 minutes
- Prepare couscous by adding water heated for 2 minutes to a ready made couscous mix (Rs 130/ 2.2 USD odd a pack)
- Add the couscous to the veggies, mix and put into a box. I added some creamy French feta to give it a Mediterranean bite. And some fresh basil. It also kept the salad fairly moist as I had it a while later at work.
It tasted pretty good and I finished the entire amount that I had got to work. The dish was light and yet not dry thanks to the Feta. The sweet corn balanced the heat of the red chillies. Mushrooms gave it a nice spongy bite. Basil, a minty, fresh feel to liven up the afternoon.
The portion cooked added up to breakfast, lunch and a side salad for my mother too
Note: The name on the dish is a play on the Gujarati langauge. Gujaratis in Mumbai are largely vegetarian. Many of whom are open to experimenting with cuisines within the boundaries of green.