Friday, and the Whole House Knows

In Tunisia, Friday carries a particular smell. It drifts out of windows and along stairwells around midday: onion softening in olive oil, a hit of chilli, the sweet-savoury steam of lamb and pumpkin. The main meal after prayers is couscous, and it is rarely a quiet, private affair. Cousins turn up. A neighbour sends down a plate. Someone's friend from work is suddenly at the table, being handed a spoon.

The dish itself is simple in outline — semolina, broth, vegetables, meat — but it is built to be shared. One enormous platter sits in the middle, everyone eats from their own section, and the person nearest the good turnip is expected to be generous about it. If you want to bring a bit of that Friday feeling to a British kitchen, the trick is not to chase authenticity at the expense of your own sanity. It is to plan the platter so that everything lands hot at the same time.

Start With the Broth and the Spice Base

The broth is the whole dish. Get it right and the couscous merely has to keep up.

Use lamb shoulder cut into large chunks, or a jointed chicken, or both. Brown the meat in olive oil in your largest pot, then add a chopped onion and cook until soft. Stir in a tablespoon or two of harissa and a teaspoon of tabil — the Tunisian blend of ground coriander, caraway, garlic and chilli — plus a spoonful of tomato purée. Fry the paste for a minute until it darkens and smells nutty rather than raw. Add a couple of litres of water, a drained tin or two of chickpeas, and salt.

Simmer gently for a good forty-five minutes before the vegetables go in. You want a broth that tastes complete on its own: strong, slightly oily, faintly hot, and looser than a stew, because you will be ladling it over the grain in stages. Taste it twice (dangerous) and salt it properly.

Choosing the Vegetables for the Platter

Tunisian couscous is built around what is in season and what holds its shape. Cut everything into generous chunks — big enough to lift out with a spoon and arrange on top of the mound. They should look like vegetables, not garnish.

• Firm and slow: carrot, turnip, potato, pumpkin or butternut, added first.
• Medium: courgette and green beans, added about fifteen minutes later.
• Quick and bright: fresh broad beans in spring, a handful of chopped parsley at the end.
• Optional sweetness: a few prunes or raisins, which some northern households add and others would never dream of.
• Heat: a whole green chilli or two, left intact, for whoever wants it.

Chickpeas run through the whole pot. If you are using dried ones, soak them overnight — this is the single change that most improves the finished dish.

Steaming the Couscous Properly

Buy medium or fine semolina couscous, not the instant, pre-steamed sort that only needs hot water. The real thing rewards you.

Tip the grain into a wide dish, rub in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil so every grain is coated, then sprinkle over a little cold salted water, a spoonful at a time, raking it through with your fingers. It should feel damp and sandy, never wet. Leave it ten minutes to absorb.

Now steam it over the broth. If you have a couscoussier, use it. If not, line a colander with muslin or a clean tea towel, sit it over your largest pan of simmering broth, and seal the join with foil or a folded cloth so the steam cannot escape sideways. Steam for twenty minutes, tip the grain back into the dish, sprinkle with salted water and a little oil, rake it through, rest it, then steam again. Twice is good; three times is what a Tunisian grandmother does. Never boil couscous in the broth — it will collapse into porridge.

The Sides That Make It a Feast

Couscous alone is a meal. Couscous with its sides is a Friday. Put these on the table in small bowls and let people help themselves.

• Harissa loosened with hot broth, for spooning over at the table.
• Slata mechouia: grilled peppers and tomatoes, peeled, chopped and dressed with olive oil, garlic and caraway.
• A chopped salad of cucumber, tomato, onion, olives and tinned tuna, with quartered boiled eggs on top.
• Lben or natural yoghurt, poured over the last of the couscous in the bowl — the traditional finish, especially for children.
• Bread, olives and preserved lemon, because there should always be more than enough.

Timing, and the Shared Table

Do the fiddly parts early. Soak chickpeas and chop vegetables on Thursday. Make the salad and thin the harissa on Friday morning. Put the broth on at midday, add the slow vegetables after forty-five minutes, and steam the couscous while they finish.

To serve, mound the grain on one large platter, hollow the centre, ladle broth into it, then arrange the meat and vegetables over the top in rough wedges so everyone can see what they are getting. Keep a jug of hot broth at the side for second helpings. Sit low, eat with spoons or your right hand, and let the conversation run long. Whatever is left gets eaten later with cold buttermilk, or fried the next morning with an egg.