Couscous Pancakes

Ever wonder what to do with leftover couscous? (say that in your head like Andy Rooney) I do, all the time. I love making couscous as fast simple side to go along with any old piece of protein. The Near East plain boxed stuff is a staple in my house though we will often buy it in bulk as well. My preference is to saute a couple of chopped cloves of garlic in the requisite amount of olive oil on the box then add the liquid and cook as directed.
Every cup of couscous needs two cups of liquid. You can use water but I prefer to use chicken stock.

Regardless of how you cook your couscous, if your house is like my house there is always a bunch left. It does reheat OK in the microwave but it just loses something.

In my brain I was looking at this plastic tub of cold couscous to go along with some tasty miso and riesling marinated salmon and I thought I might try to replicate fried rice with couscous. When I realized that would mean also chopping an onion, finding some frozen veggies which seemed like more work than I could muster in the 10 minutes or so I had to spare.

Enter the pancake.
I took my leftover couscous (about two cups of cooked couscous)  and tossed it into a bowl with some garlic powder, salt, pepper and some thyme. I added two eggs and mixed it up until it had kind of a soft almost batter like texture. I  preheated my oven to broil and heated up a 8 inch skillet with a good amount of oil. Once the pan was really hot I  added my mixture, once it started to set up and brown on the bottom I tossed it into broiler to finish.

While the cake itself was kind of dry the sauce I made with the salmon soaked into it nicely and it was a great bed for the fish.

You could season these to go along with whatever style of food you are cooking so they are pretty darn versatile.

Enjoy