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Twenty-minute Fat-free Couscous

A quick vegetable couscous cooked with sherry, onions, broccoli, cauliflower, bell pepper, green onions, spinach, garlic, herbs, and a roux of whole wheat flour.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Rosemary and oregano match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 344 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Twenty-minute Fat-free Couscous

Ingredients

Directions

Sauté the vegetables

  1. Place a large skillet over medium heat.

  2. Pour about ½–¾ cup of cooking sherry into the skillet.

  3. Chop up 1 onion and add it to the skillet. Stir occasionally.

  4. Add a couple cups of chopped broccoli and/or cauliflower and continue to sauté.

  5. Add a chopped bell pepper.

  6. Add a bunch of green onions.

  7. Add spinach and other vegetables as desired.

  8. Add as much garlic as you can stand (usually 3 or 4 cloves).

  9. Add rosemary, oregano, bay leaves, and a small pinch of cayenne.

  10. Sauté all of this until done, usually just a few minutes.

Make the gravy

  1. Remove most of the vegetables from the skillet, leaving as much liquid as possible, and some of the vegetables.

  2. Add 2 cups of room‑temperature water to the remaining liquid.

  3. Mix two tablespoons of whole wheat flour in ½ cup of room‑temperature water until completely dissolved; any lumps will prove disastrous.

  4. When the water in the skillet boils and the water/whole‑wheat mixture is added, stir until the gravy thickens.

Prepare the couscous and serve

  1. Add water to the couscous, stir well, and leave covered.

  2. To serve, put couscous on each plate, top with vegetable, and gray.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

816Calories
27 gProtein
3 gFat
165 gCarbs

Counts 12 of 13 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 12 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Couscous1 cup cooked (157g)176
Broccoli1 cup chopped (156g)55
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Bell Pepper1 medium (119g)31
Wine2 tbsp cooking wine (30ml)25
Chili1 tsp (2.7g)8
Spinach1 cup raw (30g)7
Oregano1 tsp dried (1.8g)5
Garlic1 clove (3g)4
Rosemary1 tsp dried (1.2g)4
Bay Leaf1 leaf (0.6g)2
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Rosemary + oreganotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together344 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Broccoli + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,072 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Broccoli + spinachtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together302 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  5. Spinach + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Couscous
Forms the bulk of the dish, soaking up liquid to become tender and fluffy.
Broccoli and cauliflower
Provide the main vegetable body, softening as they sauté and adding texture.
Whole wheat flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a gravy when stirred in as a smooth slurry.
Cooking sherry
Adds aromatic, slightly acidic depth to the vegetables as the base liquid.
Onion
Builds a sweet, savory aromatic base as it cooks down in the skillet.

The step that matters

Mixing the flour slurry. Flour clumps when added dry or unevenly to hot liquid. Fully dissolving it in cool water first lets the starch disperse and thicken the gravy smoothly instead of forming lumps.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sherry, broccoli, pepper, spinach, garlic, rosemary, oregano):

  1. Eggplantfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Kalefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sherry, broccoli, pepper, spinach, garlic, rosemary, oregano. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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