Text And Recipe By Michal Soussan Photography By Miriam Cohen

MOROCCAN KEFTAS (BURGERS) AND COUSCOUS WITH VEGGIES

Serves 5

• 1½ cups Moroccan couscous (not the small pasta that’s often called Israeli couscous)

BURGERS

• 1½ lb (680 g) ground beef
• 1 egg
• ¼ cup bread crumbs
• 2 Tbsp chopped garlic
• fresh parsley, to taste
• 1 tsp cumin
• salt and pepper, to taste

VEGETABLES

• onion
• zucchini
• carrots
• chickpeas
• sweet potatoes
• celery
• olive oil, salt, cinnamon, and honey, to taste, or salt, to taste

Preheat your grill pan and grease it. In a large bowl, combine all ingredients for the burgers. Form oval golf-ball-sized patties. Place onto the grill pan, and cook until the outer layer is crispy and the inside is juicy. Depending on your taste, you can make the vegetables either sweet or salty.

For the sweet: Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C). Sauté the onion until caramelized. Dice the rest of the vegetables and place in a 9x13-inch (20x30-cm) baking pan, then put the onion on top. Drizzle everything with olive oil, salt, cinnamon, and honey. Bake for 1½ hours. Make a chicken broth on the side and use that for your couscous so it’s not dry.
For the salty: Cube all the vegetables and place in a pot of water. Bring to a boil and cook until soft. Drain the vegetables, reserving the cooking water for the couscous. Add salt to the cooking water and use this water to moisten
your cooked couscous. Cook the couscous according to package instructions. Mix vegetables with the couscous, and serve together with the burgers.

NOTE: You can use any vegetables you have in your fridge; I included those we like.

TIP: To make these burgers more exciting for my kids, I stick them onto a small skewer and they become a “meat lolly.”

(Originally featured in FamilyTable 641)