Culinary espionage: Mrs. Mahmoud's secret couscous recipe

Let's be honest with ourselves, couscous may be a hip food to eat these days, but most of times it tastes like wet sand and smells funny. Even when cooked at home, following the instructions on the package blindly: "boil water, add couscous, let it sit on the stove for a while", results in lumpy fodder none more illustrious than the anaemic supermarket variety.

That is why Mrs. Mahmoud's couscous was a revelation. I had to know how she managed to turn something so bland and unexciting into a fiesta of taste buds titillation. However, all my subsequent attempts to elicit the recipe from her were to no avail. Not she was unfriendly or secretive. She was too shy.

I had had it before and I still get it all the time. When I ask my African neighbours for recipes the immediate reaction is: 'Why would a White guy ever want to cook African food?' 'Well, because it tastes so blooming good!' Any request to teach me a Yoruba phrase or explain the meaning of different ways of tying female headgear are met with the same kind of disbelief and cultural self-denial. The roots of this deeply seated sense of unworthiness are brilliantly explored in Shohat and Stam's brilliant Unthinking Eurocentrism, but I digress.



In short, I had no other option but to try and crack the recipe myself. After a few progressively successful attempts and a lot of spying on African ladies shopping in Brixton market, I have finally managed to get the taste and flavour exactly like that Mrs. Mahmoud's. So here how it goes.

Mrs. Mahmoud's secret couscous recipe:
Peel half a head of garlic and two or three large African onions (or just regular red ones).Heat a generous amount of vegetable oil in a thick cast-iron skillet. I use olive oil but sunflower oil with a dab of palm oil, just for the flavour, should be very nice too. The amount should be quite liberal, as couscous absorbs it all without a trace greatly improving in taste and texture.Slice the garlic and onions very thinly and fry until all evenly golden brown. Reduce the fire to minimum.
Chop half a Scotch bonnet chili and add to the skillet with half a handful of dried anchovies. Flavour with a nice glug of fish sauce. Remove from fire.
Bring to boil 3 glasses of water in a cast-iron pot. Reduce the fire to minimum. Tip the fried mix from the skillet into the pot. Add some salt (I use hand-raked Guerande sea salt, as it contains a lot of sea-water micro-elements on top of the plain old sodium chloride). Chop into small bits whatever vegetables you have of the following: runner beans, haricot beans, bell peppers, tomatoes, sweet corn kernels. Add to the pot with a few whole Chantenay carrots and cook until half-done.
Fold a very generous handful of fresh or dried mint and/or oregano into the mix. Make sure to tear the herbs into small pieces beforehand.
Add 500 g (about one pound) of couscous and fold into the mix. Put the lid on and allow to sit on the smallest possible fire for 20-30 minutes. Stir occasionally.Serve with lamb chops and grilled vegetables.