Culinary espionage: Mrs. Mahmoud's secret couscous recipe

here is this Sudanese lady in my apartment block who exudes motherly kindness as she glides around unhurriedly in resplendent multi-layered robes. A year ago I was sitting at my Nigerian neighbour's place having a nice friendly banter, trying, as usual, to outshout a Nigerian music channel on TV and two simultaneous mobile phone conversations, when she popped by with a big bundle in her hands. No, that was not an illegitimate baby, but a large pan wrapped in towels to keep it warm. Inside was the most aromatic and scrumptious couscous that ever hit my nostrils or touched my taste buds.

Let's be honest with ourselves, couscous may be a hip food these days, but most of times it tastes like wet sand and smells like old clothes. Even when cooked at home, following the instructions on the package blindly: "boil water, add couscous, let it sit on the stove for a while", results in lumpy gunk none more illustrious than the anaemic supermarket variety.

That is why Mrs. Mahmoud's couscous was a revelation. I had to know how she managed to turn something so bland and unexciting into a fiesta of taste buds titillation. However, all my subsequent attempts to elicit the recipe from her were to no avail. Not she was unfriendly or secretive. She was too shy.

I had had it before and I still get it all the time. When I ask my African neighbours for recipes the immediate reaction is: 'Why would a White guy ever want to cook African food?' 'Well, because it tastes so blooming good!' Any request to teach me a Yoruba phrase or explain the meaning of different ways of tying female headgear are met with the same kind of disbelief and cultural self-denial. The roots of this deeply seated sense of unworthiness are brilliantly explored in Shohat and Stam's brilliant Unthinking Eurocentrism, but I digress.



In short, I had no other option but to try and crack the recipe myself. After a few progressively successful attempts and a lot of spying on African ladies shopping in Brixton market, I have finally managed to get the taste and flavour exactly like that Mrs. Mahmoud's. So here how it goes.

Mrs. Mahmoud's secret couscous recipe:

1. Peel half a head of garlic and two or three large African onions (or just regular red ones).
   
2. Heat a generous amount of vegetable oil in a thick cast-iron skillet. I use olive oil but sunflower oil with a dab of palm oil, just for the flavour, should be very nice too. The amount should be quite liberal, as couscous absorbs it all without a trace greatly improving in taste and texture.
   
3. Slice the garlic and onions very thinly and gently fry on a very low fire.
   
4. Chop half a Scotch bonnet chili and add to the skillet with half a handful of dried anchovies. Flavour with a nice glug of fish sauce. Remove from fire.
   
5. Bring to a boil 3 glasses of water in a cast-iron pot. Reduce the fire to minimum. Tip the fried mix from the skillet into the pot. Add some salt (I use hand-raked Guerande sea salt, as it contains a lot of sea-water micro-elements on top of the plain old sodium chloride).
   
6. Chop into small bits whatever vegetables you have of the following: runner beans, haricot beans, bell peppers, tomatoes, sweet corn kernels. Add to the pot with a few whole Chantenay carrots and cook until half-done.
   
7. Fold a very generous handful of dried mint and/or oregano into the mix.
   
8. Add 500 g (about one pound) of couscous and fold into the mix. Put the lid on and allow to sit on the smallest possible fire for 20-30 minutes. Stir occasionally.
   
9. Serve with lamb chops and grilled vegetables.