Aslooz (Libyan Couscous-Based Dish)
Libya
Rédacteur en chef
Abuja, Nigeria ·
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Abuja, Nigeria ·
Aslooz is a Libyan couscous dish named after a plant, and the plant is the reason it belongs to a season rather than to a calendar. Aslooz is a wild weed that grows across the countryside and the mountain regions of western Libya, gathered rather than farmed, and harvested in a narrow window through January and February. It is picked from roadsides and hillsides in the Nafusa mountains and the western districts, and only the tender twigs and flowering branches are used. Because it grows wild and its season is short, aslooz has never been a commercial crop, and it is effectively unavailable outside Libya. Libyan families abroad substitute, most often asparagus with dill, sometimes carrot with cumin leaves, and this recipe is written that way. Everything about it is plain: steamed couscous, a tomato base, a wild green and a carrot sauce sharpened with lemon and chilli. Libyans describe it as cheap and cheerful and treat it as a family dish, made and eaten together rather than served to guests. The couscous is steamed over the greens so it takes their flavour from below, which is the technique that separates it from a couscous simply mixed with vegetables, and it is what a Libyan cook would notice first if it were skipped.
Aslooz takes its name from a wild plant gathered in the countryside and mountain areas of western Libya, harvested during January and February. It is not a cultivated crop, and the dish is associated particularly with the Nafusa mountain region.
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Dice the onion and crush the garlic. In a medium saucepan, sauté them in the olive oil over medium heat for a few minutes.
Add the crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, water and spices, and let it simmer over medium heat, stirring occasionally. If it spits, rest a lid on the pot at an angle so steam can still escape.
Fill the base of a steamer pot halfway with water and set it on the heat. A stacking steamer pot is needed here; a basket steamer will not work.
While the water heats, wash and trim the asparagus and chop it into pieces about 1cm long.
In a bowl, mix the dry couscous with 1/4 cup water. It will clump at first, so keep working it and breaking the clumps up.
Spread the chopped asparagus across the bottom of the steamer section, covering all the holes, then spread the couscous over it.
Set the steamer over the boiling water, cover, reduce to medium and steam for 15 minutes.
Remove the lid carefully, gently mix the asparagus and couscous together, replace the lid and steam for another 15 minutes.
Meanwhile stir the tomato sauce and add water if needed. It should be slightly thinner than a marinara. Wash and finely chop the dill.
Taste the couscous. If it is soft it is ready; if it still has bite, give it a few more minutes.
Transfer the couscous to a serving dish and stir through the chopped dill.
Check the salt in the sauce, then stir a few spoonfuls of it into the couscous until the grains turn slightly orange.
Smooth the top and spoon the remaining sauce evenly over the surface. Garnish with flat leaf parsley if you like.
4 avis
My husband brought fresh dill and asparagus from the market in Silver Spring so I tried this last night. In Congo we chop greens fine for pondu so cutting the asparagus into 1cm pieces was easy for me. The tomato sauce was spitting everywhere at first until I tilted the lid at an angle like you explained. C'est tres bon, just needed a bit more cayenne for my taste.
e sweet no be small thing! Sourced the bzaar spice mix from Iqbal Foods here in Toronto and it gave the sauce such a rich aroma with the crushed tomatoes. Was worried the asparagus would get mushy but keeping them in 1cm chunks made them hold up perfectly with the steamed couscous.
Abeg quick question about the steamer part, do I need to line the top section of the stacking steamer with cloth so the wet couscous doesn't fall through the holes into the boiling water? My basket steamer definitely won't work so I am borrowing a metal tier steamer later today.
Couldn't find actual aslooz anywhere in Baltimore so the asparagus sub saved me o. Had to get 7 spice and turmeric from a Halal store on Liberty Rd because real bzaar mix was hard to find. That trick of mixing 1/4 cup water into the dry couscous first to break up the clumps before steaming worked like magic. Sweet paprika and dill smell in the kitchen was so good sha.