{"id":782,"date":"2013-02-01T15:29:19","date_gmt":"2013-02-01T15:29:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ginnyang.com\/?p=782"},"modified":"2013-02-11T20:27:24","modified_gmt":"2013-02-11T20:27:24","slug":"ginger-fennel-and-golden-zucchini-couscous-with-venison-and-chorizo-sausages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/?p=782","title":{"rendered":"Ginger, Fennel and Golden Zucchini Couscous with Venison and Chorizo Sausages"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have never been a big fan of couscous and nor is my wife, every dish we’ve tried has been too bland.\u00a0 That was until I decided to give it another go at my local restaurant – The Bridge Brassiere<\/a>.\u00a0 I had their Ginger & Fennel Couscous with Venison sausages for lunch.\u00a0 It was wonderful, and that’s not the usual word I use to describe dishes with couscous!\u00a0 The ginger and fennel gave the couscous some real flavour and fragrance, the venison sausages provided a rich and robust partner and the raisins (which I normally object to anything other than desserts) added some sweetness to balance the whole dish out.\u00a0 It was a really well thought out plate of food.\u00a0 It’s what I’ve come to expect from the Chef’s over at The Bridge!\u00a0 They come up with some pretty creative ideas, Jerusalem artichoke bellini\u00a0pancakes being my pick of the bunch.\u00a0 So if you are ever in Chippenham, I highly recommend you pay The Bridge a visit.\u00a0 They also have a really nice deli next door (sadly they are moving\u00a0to bigger premises and no new\u00a0deli is planned)\u00a0that I use for some ingredients.<\/p>\n

To celebrate my new-found love of\u00a0couscous I decided to come up with my own dish.\u00a0 OK, it’s heavily inspired by what I had at the restaurant but that’s because it was so damned good!\u00a0 That and it was also my first time cooking with couscous, so I decided not to mess too much with a proven recipe.\u00a0 I didn’t get the recipe from the restaurant, beyond the main ingredients I’m just going with what I felt was right for the dish.<\/p>\n

I’m keeping the ginger and fennel combination, aromatic and full of flavours that compliment each other – perfect.\u00a0 I’m also keeping the Venison sausages as they add a real richness to the dish that would be hard to replace.\u00a0 I’m taking out the raisins though, they were good in the original but I’m sticking to my “no cooking with raisins” rule.\u00a0 Instead I found some golden courgettes (zucchini) as they were in season at the time.\u00a0 You could replace them with some sweet tomatoes, or maybe beetroot would be an interesting experiment?\u00a0 I toyed with the idea of adding garlic to the couscous but in the end I went with Chorizo, firstly to give the dish some added flavour and secondly to add some variation to the gamey venison which I find has a tendency to tire out my taste buds.\u00a0 I also added an orange bell pepper for some additional sweetness, with hindsight I think I should have used a red one as the whole dish looks a little yellow!\u00a0 I think I could squeeze in a herb somewhere but I left it out this time.\u00a0 Perhaps a touch of coriander next time?\u00a0 Add a spice or two and the dish is complete.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I had a photo for this article but sadly its managed to do a runner… I’ve made the dish again, although with slightly different ingredients but it’s better than nothing!<\/p>\n

\"GnY_CousCousGF\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ingredients (Serves 2):<\/strong><\/p>\n

4 Venison Sausages<\/p>\n

2 Chorizo Sausages<\/p>\n

2 Golden Zucchinis<\/p>\n

1 Bulb Fennel<\/p>\n

200\u00a0g Couscous<\/p>\n

400\u00a0ml Chicken Stock<\/p>\n

2 Shallots<\/p>\n

1\u00a0Red\u00a0\/ Orange\u00a0Bell Pepper<\/p>\n

1 medium root Ginger<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Method:<\/strong><\/p>\n

1.\u00a0 Set a grill pan or heavy frying pan to a high heat, then start frying the Venison sausages.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0 Start boiling the chicken stock in a saucepan.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0 Prep the Fennel,\u00a0Pepper, Shallots and Ginger\u00a0and chop into a small dice.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0 Place a saute pan or frying pan over a medium heat and fry the shallots, ginger\u00a0and fennel until they become fragrant.<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0 While the vegetables are cooking, add the\u00a0Chorizo sausages to the grill pan with the venison and continue to cook, turning occasionally<\/p>\n

6.\u00a0 Put the dry couscous in a bowl and then pour over the boiling chicken stock, give it a quick stir and then\u00a0cover and allow to sit for about 8-10mins.<\/p>\n

7.\u00a0 Stir the couscous to ensure the stock has been completely absorbed and the couscous expands and has\u00a0become fluffy.<\/p>\n

7.\u00a0 Mix the couscous into the pan of vegetables and then take off the heat.<\/p>\n

8.\u00a0 Plate the couscous and then place two venison sausages and one chorizo sausage on each plate and serve immediately.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tips:<\/strong><\/p>\n

– The great thing about couscous (aside from the short cooking times) is that it takes on whatever flavours you put into it.\u00a0 So unless you want a very plain couscous, don’t use simple boiling water, use a stock or broth of some kind to really give it some flavour.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have never been a big fan of couscous and nor is my wife, every dish we’ve tried has been too bland.\u00a0 That was until I decided to give it another go at my local restaurant – The Bridge Brassiere.\u00a0 I had their Ginger & Fennel Couscous with Venison sausages for lunch.\u00a0 It was wonderful, and that’s not the usual word I use to describe dishes with couscous!\u00a0 The ginger and fennel gave the couscous[…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":933,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[18,34,33,37,5],"tags":[59,11,58],"class_list":["post-782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east","category-gluten","category-lactose","category-main","category-recipes","tag-couscous","tag-pork","tag-venison"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/2013-02-11-19.06.00.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1PTCG-cC","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=782"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":852,"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782\/revisions\/852"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}