Tunisian-style Octo-cous Stew to Make at Home

Comfort food from the Southern Mediterranean

This is one of my favorite dishes of all time—octopus, couscous, harissa, and beans simmered together to make a wonderfully delicious stew. I hadn’t thought much about it of late, but while I was down at the Southern Foodways Alliance Symposium in Birmingham, Alabama, this past weekend, it came up in a conversation with North Carolina chef and friend Cheetie Kumar. Since I shared the dish with Cheetie, I thought I’d share it with you as well!

I learned how to make this ages ago on a trip to Tunisia to visit the Mahjoub family, our now-longtime suppliers of great olive oil (which Tammie and I use every day at our house) and other traditional Tunisian products. They’ve been in business for over a century. On their organic farm about an hour southwest of Tunis, they grow the olives for olive oil, wheat for couscous, and peppers and tomatoes for their amazing harissa. Everything we get from them is exceptional. Their hand-rolled, sun-dried couscous, without question, redefines the category. The harissa is a very dense and super-delicious “paste” of sun-dried organic tomatoes and peppers from their farm, plus their oil, garlic, and spices. Each is remarkable on its own. Together in this seafood stew, they turn into a compelling, comforting, super-tasty meal!

The exact, measured-out recipe for the Octo-cous is in Part 4 of the Guide to Good Leading, but this dish is not all that hard to prepare without it. If you start with cooked beans and cooked chickpeas—I confess to using canned more often than not for convenience—it’s about an hour of cook time, most of which is unattended, so you can do whatever other inspiring things you want while the stuff is simmering on the stovetop. The texture you’re looking for in the finished dish is that of a thick stew, so I’ll let you judge, but starting with 1⁄2 cup of couscous will be fine. To put the picture into your mind’s cooking eye, it’s more a tomato-based bean-and-octopus stew with couscous, not a bowl of lightly fluffed couscous with bits of octopus in it. If you don’t have octopus (I get mine at Monahan’s in Kerrytown) or don’t want to include it, there’s really no reason you can’t do this dish with other fish or squid.

To make the stew, mix together water or fish stock, tomato purée and paste (or tomato sauce rather than the purée and paste), extra virgin olive oil, harissa, and a bit of minced garlic. Bring it to a boil in a large, heavy-bottomed pot. Add a bunch of cooked chickpeas and sliced octopus, and then bring the whole pot back to a boil. Reduce the heat so it all barely simmers, cover, and cook for about an hour, until the octopus is tender. The result will be a light and flavorful tomato broth. Stir in fava beans and ground caraway and bring back to a boil. When the beans are tender, add Mahjoub’s amazing couscous. Stir well, turn off the heat, cover, and let rest for 12 minutes or so. The couscous will cook in the broth. Taste for seasoning and adjust accordingly. You can adjust the seasoning with more tomato, garlic, caraway, or harissa, and salt to taste.

Serve in warm bowls with a crescent of olive oil drizzled atop each. If eating it makes you half as happy as it makes me, you’re gonna have a good week! In challenging times, comfort food like this can make all the difference!

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