Stop worrying and substitute ingredients!

If I could sum up my cooking style that would this would be it. If you don’t have a specific ingredient then find something similar and use that! This principle works very well if you ‘grow your own’, but also in general for producing tasty dishes.

Pomegranate – certainly not easy to grow in the UK, expensive and imported. However, redcurrants are very similar – tangy little red berries.

Many different Middle Eastern dishes use a type of grain (rice, cous cous, freekah, bulgar etc) with herbs, nuts and balance this with the tang of pomegranate. Here I have made something similar with fresh ingredients from the plot and cheap peanuts.

Tangy cous cous salad with peanuts and redcurrants:

I haven’t used quantities here because it doesn’t really matter. Add how much you have or fancy.

*Cous cous left to soak in chicken stock and lime juice. You can just cook the cous cous in water or any stock you wish. I like to add some sort of acidity here, but vinegar would work or lemon juice.
*Chopped fresh parsley and chives. Any herbs you fancy!
*Fresh redcurrants
*Raw veg – I added grated golden beetroot, spring onion, lettuce and carrot. Cucumber or tomato would be great!
*Couple of tablespoons of a sweet relish. Any sweet pickles would work – beetroot, onions, gherkins etc!
*Roasted peanuts. Any nuts you fancy!