Cioppino is an Italian-American fish stew. The dish is said to have been invented by Italian immigrants from Genoa in San Francisco in the late 19th century.
Based on popular Italian and French seafood stews, cioppino was traditionally made with the catch of the day. This includes white fish and shellfish like mussels, clams and shrimp simmered with white (or red) wine, garlic and tomatoes. Shellfish are left unshelled for extra flavor.
Restaurants catering to tourists on Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco often serve cioppino with a bib.
Couscous is a coarsely ground pasta made from semolina, a type of wheat.
A staple of the North African Maghreb, couscous comes in instant and non-instant varieties.
Like macaroni and spaghetti, couscous is made from semolina flour, but rather than mixing the semolina with a prescribed amount of water and/or egg into a dough, couscous is made by rubbing the semolina between moistened hands until the flour combines with just enough water to form hundreds of tiny grains. Obviously the process takes a light touch, lest the grains combine into a gooey mass, but once learned it is one of the simplest forms of making pasta and one that is practiced in villages all around the Mediterranean basin.
After the couscous grains are formed they are dried and steamed over a stew, usually made from lamb, in a special pot called a couscoussière. Steaming couscous is an involved operation, requiring sealing the top of the couscoussière to its bottom with rags dipped in flour paste, and then interrupting the steaming several times to rub the softening couscous grains to insure that they remain separate.
Fortunately it is no longer necessary to go through all that labor, due to the broad availability of instant couscous. This product has already been steamed and then dried again before it is packaged. It needs only to be soaked in boiling water until it swells, a process that takes about 10 minutes.
Couscous doesn't have a lot of flavor on its own, but it works well as a base for vegetable or meat dishes. It also mixes beautifully into salads and can be flavored with herbs like coriander, basil or mint, or even studded with fruit like raisins or apricots. It's a very neutral -- and nutritious -- base for all sorts of dishes.
Reference: A really simple way to make couscous (Cookthink)
Cilantro is the parsley of the East, where it's known as "coriander leaves" or "dhani". (In Mexico, where it's also very popular, it's sometimes called "Mexican parsley".)
If you like cilantro (and some people don't at all), the herb is an easy way to add a beautifully fresh, sweet, fruity flavor to any dish.
To prep it, first rinse and shake dry the leaves. Hold the bouquet at an angle with the leaves against the cutting board. Run your knife down the side of the bouquet to slice away the leaves. It's fine to remove some of the tender stems along with the leaves. (In fact, for salsas, spice pastes, curries and some longer-cooking dishes, the stems add essential, concentrated cilantro flavor.)
Now just run your knife back and forth across the pile of leaves, chopping them as coarsely or as finely as you need to. The closer to the end of the cooking you plan to add the cilantro, the finer you'll want to chop it. But since cilantro is so tender it's usually okay to keep the the chop coarse.
Now that you know how to prep it, try some cilantro recipes at Cookthink.com.
Harissa is a spicy chili paste from North Africa and the Middle East that can be found in Algeria, Libya, Tunisia and Morocco, and is popular in France.
Made with (often smoked) chili peppers, garlic, olive or caraway oil and coriander, it may also contain cumin, dried mint, verbena leaves, tomatoes or rose petals. The ingredients are pounded to a paste, which is left to develop its flavors for at least 12 hours.
Harissa is used to flavor merguez sausage; as a condiment for falafel and other dishes; as a meat rub; and diluted in broth to add spice to couscous, stews and soups. Prepared harissa is available in jars, tubes and cans; homemade harissa can be covered with olive oil and kept in a sealed container in the refrigerator.
