Big balls

Marrakesh Express Couscous Grande

by Linda Lowenthal

NOSHING & SIPPING

Ordinary couscous looks and acts like a grain, but it's really pasta in bits so tiny its identity is hidden. The truth is unmasked in "Honey, I Blew Up the Couscous" -- sorry, Marrakesh Express Couscous Grande. These toasted "pearls"

of Mediterranean couscous, also known as Jerusalem couscous, are a few millimeters across. You prepare them much the same way as you would the regular kind, allowing hot water and seasonings -- roasted garlic, sun-dried tomato, roasted red pepper, or toasted onion -- to be absorbed. What you're left with is a mass of mildly savory, pleasantly slippery little blobs. Makes you wonder what they're using to fertilize those couscous fields in the Mediterranean. A 4.8-oz. package costs $2.29 at Star Market.

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