All Fired Up Great meals to take on the trail By Julie St. Jean
THERE IS NOTHING MORE pleasing than the smell of flamecooked foods. Fortunately, cooking over an open fire can take place in the backyard, alongside a freshly paddled river, or wherever your next great outdoor adventure takes you. Nowadays our adventures are not limited to the outdoors. Our tastes for food have also become adventurous. With this in mind, I have put together a light menu that is elegant enough to serve to dinner guests, and that travels well. Tonight we are having rosemary chicken skewers, wild mushroom couscous, grilled asparagus and corn on the cob, with grilled Greek-style pita with cumin. As the saying goes, “good beginnings lead to great endings.” With a BBQ, it almost always starts with the marinade. A marinade serves many purposes. It is a liquid used to flavour, preserve, tenderize and moisten dry foods. We are using a versatile recipe that goes well with vegetables, tofu, meats and fish. This same marinade is going to be used to enhance the flavour of the mushroom couscous. Couscous is typically made from semolina. It is dried and much like finely cracked spaghetti. It is traditionally found soaking up a Moroccan tajine, but it more recently made its debut as a base ingredient for salads. It also makes a light alternative side dish. Couscous is simple to prepare and expands to about three times its volume, making it an ideal item to carry in a travel pack. Marinade: Serves 4 60 ml (1/4 cup) fresh lemon juice 60 ml (1/4 cup) soy sauce 3 cloves minced garlic 125 ml (1/2 cup) of grapeseed or olive oil Combine all ingredients. Rosemary Chicken Skewers: 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts 8 fresh rosemary stems Look for hearty stems that are at least four inches long and strong enough to hold the chicken. Remove the leaves from the stems. Cut the chicken breasts into 2.5 centimetre (one inch) cubes and thread them onto the rosemary stems. Pour half of the marinade onto the skewers in a shallow pan (or in a sealed zip lock bag if you’re taking it out on a trip). You may want to substitute tofu for the chicken if proper cold storage is not available to you. You could also 48
marinate the chicken while frozen. In that case, threading it onto the skewers would have to be done just before cooking. Wild Mushroom Couscous: 400 grams (about 2 cups) couscous 500 ml (2 cups) salted boiling water or stock 200 grams (about 1 cup) of dried mushrooms 4 scallions, thinly sliced on the diagonal A handful of fresh cilantro leaves Bring water or stock and dried mushrooms to a boil. Turn off the heat and let the mushrooms sit until softened, about five minutes. Bring water/mushroom mixture back to a boil. Quickly pour over couscous. Let sit uncovered in a bowl. After three to five minutes, fluff with a fork to loosen grains and to release the steam. If you do not fluff with a fork, it will stick together and become mushy. Continue to fluff until all water is absorbed. Drizzle with the remaining marinade and toss with scallions and cilantro. An optional cooking method is to simply add the couscous to the pot of boiling water and remove from the heat. Fluff with a fork as suggested above. Sun-dried tomatoes can be substituted for the mushrooms. They also travel well. I would be inclined to add diced feta cheese with the tomatoes. Grilled Asparagus and Corn on the Cob: Snap off the hard ends of the asparagus. Shuck the corn and wrap it individually in tin foil with a little butter and salt. A squeeze of fresh lime juice and hot red pepper flakes add a nice flavour. These can be prepared ahead of time and will also travel well. Now you are ready to grill. Preheat the BBQ. Put the corn on the grill first. It will take 15-20 minutes on high. Turn it every five minutes. It will blacken. Grill the rosemary skewers about four minutes on each side. Next, grill the asparagus about one minute per side, depending on the thickness of the spears. You just want to mark the asparagus. Season it with salt. Then lightly brush the Greek-style pita with olive oil and grill, again just to leave grill marks. Remove from heat and sprinkle with ground cumin and salt. I suggest Greek-style pita because of its texture. It is doughier and doesn’t have a pocket. It absorbs the oil nicely and the smell of it on the grill is unforgettable. Ottawa Outdoors Summer
