Couscous & Chicken Kebab Bento

I bought a bag of 5 lemons at RM3+ at Tesco few days ago. Initially, I had only planned on getting 1 of the tarty fruit for making my couscous. Upon inspecting, it was RM1+ for a fruit. Calculative obasan ego naturally led me to putting down that ONE fruit and picked up the ONE bag. Hence, these few days will see me doing everything possible lemony. It was hot wild honey and lemon last night with me spudding in front of the idiot box. Life's pleasures can be very simple. :)

As I looked up for lemony facts, I read from here that lemon juice acts as a tonic to the liver and stimulates it to produce bile, making it ready to digest the day's food when taken regularly at the start of the day. Hihi. So here I am feeling slightly luxurious, adding 2 slices of lemon into my water bottle filled with good ol' sky juice. Zesty stuff! Cheh wah. Like fancy dining only. wokay wokay, it's just once in a while! Besides, the added zing serves as an excellent motivation to encourage myself to increase guzzling.

Bento Update:

Yesterday's bento had Mediterranean notes lingering around. Yours truly endeavoured into couscous cooking with mediocre results. But it's okay. Just a bit more salt next time will do the trick. Personally, the taste is fine with me coz I grew up with Mum's less oil-less salt-less sugar cooking. Papi on the other hand found it slightly bland. I'll tweak it to suit his taste next time round. Mou ikkai~

Prior to cooking this, I researched quite a lot of couscous recipes on RecipeZaar before coming out with one of my own. And here's spunkz couscous recipe for sharing!

Couscous

Ingredients:

• 4 - 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 red onion, sliced
• 1 medium tomato, chopped
• 1/2 bell pepper, chopped
• Handful of raisins
• Salt & ground black pepper
• Couscous
• Chicken stock (I used instant granules)
• Few sprigs of fresh sweet basil (Right outta my garden!)
• Olive oil
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice or more or uhh.. less

1. Saute some minced garlic and sliced red onions in olive oil till fragrant. Add in couscous and stir for a while. I also added some raisins in at this point. It can be omitted if preferred.
   
2. Next, add chicken stock to the mixture till water comes to a boil.
   
3. Follow the instructions on the packet as different brands have different water to couscous ratio stated. I used chicken stock in place of water as I wanted to infuse more flavour. Add salt and ground black pepper to taste.
   
4. Take pan off heat and allow to stand for 5 minutes with the cover on.
   
5. Then, use a fork and fluff the mixture up.
   
6. After that, stir fry the mixture on low heat again this time by adding 2 tablespoons of olive oil.
   
7. Add in chopped tomatoe and chopped green peppers. (I sauteed mine prior to this step.
   
8. Before taking pan off heat, stir in 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and mix well. (May be upped or cut down depending on preference)
   
9. Sprinkle on some shredded sweet basil leaves. Mint leaves can also be used, up to personal preference.
   
10. Couscous is ready for serving.
    

I made chicken kebabs to go with the couscous. It's really pretty simple to conjure up. Feeling very adventurous, I also gave an Oriental twist to the self-made recipe!

Chicken kebab with 5 spice powder

Marinade:

• Chicken fillet, cubed
• Salt or some Kikkoman soy sauce
• Sesame oil
• 5 spice powder or as Martin Yan calls it: Magic powder!
• Smashed garlic cloves

1. After 2 - 3 hours of marination, I skewered the chicken cubes on satay sticks and alternating between a piece of bell pepper, chicken, onion, chicken... you get my drift, yea?
2. Slather some olive oil onto the chicken skewers before popping them into the toaster oven for around 10 - 15 minutes.
   
3. Remember to turn the skewers once in a while for even grilling.
   
4. Juices may run out during the grilling process. Save it and use it to drizzle on top of the couscous! Heavenly stuff, I tell ya!
   

This is Papi's bento:

Left: Couscous with Chicken Kebab

Top right: Chilean blueberries. Lemon wedges for Papi to make tea.

Bottom right: Screwpine cake for teatime. Monkey container with Lingam's garlic chili sauce.


P/S: Will post mine after I get the pics outta Lenny. XD