Couscous stuffed with couscous

Enrico Panero’s recipe was born from the idea of creating a dish that would be entirely made of couscous with different textures – hence the name, 100% couscous – presenting it in an innovative way, though strongly recognisable. Starting from this premise, out of the products that are typical of Sicilian tradition, he chose cannolo and then re-interpreted it. The wafer is entirely made with couscous that was first puffed and then fried, and represents the crispy part of the dish, which is stuffed with cold couscous, made by uniting the classic recipe from Trapani with that of Tuscany’s pappa al pomodoro – since Florence is the town where Enrico works – thus giving the dish a fresh, summery take, inspired by street food, so as to allow for the couscous to be eaten while walking, not only when sitting at a table.

Identità Cous Cous will take place on Monday September 15th at 8 pm at Alice, Viviana Varese and Sandra Ciciriello’s restaurant on the second floor of Eataly Smeraldo, in Piazza XXV Aprile in Milan. To participate in the event: for info and reservations call Identità’s toll free number 800.825144 or Alice Ristorante +39.02.49497340, alice@aliceristorante.it. Set menu, including drinks, 40 euros.

For the wafer
1 kg coarse-grained couscous
750 g vegetable stock
100 g egg white
160 g dry Marsala
80 g white vine vinegar
40g salt
Peanut oil

For the stuffing
2 kg coarse-grained couscous
4 kg cherry tomatoes
2 kg fresh calamari
2 kg fresh prawns
2 kg rockfish meat
1 bunch of fresh spring onion
1 kg sweet green peppers
2 l fish stock
300 g peeled almonds
6 fresh chilli peppers
8 untreated lemons
Fresh parsley to taste
Sweet paprika to taste
Extra virgin olive oil to taste

Method

For the wafer
Puff the couscous with a light vegetable stock, finely separate its grains and keep 1/3 to a side. Knead 2/3 with the other ingredients and form a stick, leave it to rest for a couple of hours; roll it out to obtain a thin pastry, cut it out with a 6 cm of diameter pastry cutter. After having rolled the disk of pastry around a steel cannolo, brush the beaten egg and cover the pastry with couscous. Fry in peanut oil.

For the stuffing
Fry the fresh chilli pepper lightly with the extra virgin olive oil and the sweet paprika. Later add the cherry tomatoes cut into four slices and cook them for 15 minutes. Add the fish stock to the tomato, then the couscous and the fish cut into small pieces and bring to the boil. After around 15 minutes, remove the pot from the stove and season the mixture with the lemon juice and zest, the chopped fresh parsley and leave to cool. Put the mixture into a pastry bag, stuff the wafers, finish the ends of the cannolo with toasted chopped almonds and diced green pepper.