Houda’s Tunisian Stew and the beauty of immigration
By Gracie Schatz
I met Houda in a ceramics class and immediately connected with her over the subject of food. Houda and her husband Marc had only recently moved to Eugene from Santa Cruz, California and were in search of friends, activities and delicious food. My cooking classes were a perfect match for their curiosities. After attending a cooking class of mine and then volunteering at another, we began plotting a way for Houda to teach a Tunisian Cooking Class. Born and raised in Tunisia by a mother who is a phenomenal cook, Houda retained her knowledge and flavors and was excited to share them. I had no reference for Tunisian cuisine, I asked if it was like Morrocan food and Houda shook her head no. She talked to me about grilled salad, couscous, and hazelnut pudding. I marked the calendar in February and was eager to get into the kitchen with her when the pandemic took over all of our realities.
After months of online cooking classes in the lonely safety of my own kitchen, I received an email from Houda. Despite a prolonged and frustrating process, Houda had finally become a US citizen and wanted to celebrate with a Tunisian feast. She hosted the feast in the enormous front yard of her new home in the far west hills of Eugene. With our masks on and hands washed, we finally cooked together.
I watched as she cut huge wedges of cabbage, sliced onions in half and peeled them and began to saute them in a large pot with a generous amount of olive oil, tomato paste and harissa that had been made by her aunt and brought over from Tunisia. We stirred couscous with oil and boiling water before placing it above a rich stew that would steam flavor into the couscous as it cooked.
When everything was perfectly cooked, she told me that she normally pulls the chicken meat off of the bones for Americans to make the stew easier to eat. I laughed and told her there is nothing I enjoy more than eating meat off of the bone with my hands. “Good, we’ll eat like Tunisians then!” she said. We tossed the couscous (which Houda lamented was not as good as her mothers and not as fine as Tunisian couscous) with the flavorful broth and topped with vegetables and meat that had been cooked in the stew in a beautiful mandala pattern. Everything about this experience was foreign and mesmerizing for me.
When I started Heart of Willamette Cooking School, I dreamt of a day when I would be able to host teachers from all over the world, exposing myself and the people of Eugene to flavors and techniques that would expand our palettes and our minds. There are few things more exciting to me than learning, so in becoming a teacher and starting a school, the ultimate goal was to actually always remain a student.
In a time when our government is attempting not only to eradicate imigrants to but to torture and detain people coming to this country to build a new life for themselves, I am embarrassed and devastated to call my self a citizen of the United States. Knowing that Houda fought and waited for her citizenship and celebrated with this magnificent feast helped me remember what actually “makes America great”. It is not homogeny and exclusion, it is the vast array of people from all over the world who have come here to live, to work, to cook and thrive.
Houda’s Tunisian Stew with Couscous
Serves 8
8 bone-in, skin-on chicken legs or thighs
2 large onions, peeled and cut in half
1 large cabbage, cleaned and cut into 8 large wedges
5 medium sized potatoes, peeled, quartered and rinsed
4 large zucchini, cut in half
1 bunch carrots, cleaned and cut into 4” long pieces
8 oz can tomato paste
4 oz harissa paste
1 8 oz can garbanzo beans
¼ cup olive oil
2 tablespoons ground coriander
3 cups couscous
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 cup boiling water
Salt and pepper to taste
In a large pot that fits a steamer basket on top of it (this is a crucial part of this dish, you must have a pot that fits a steamer on top, Houda bought a special pot just for this occasion) over high heat add ¼ cup olive oil and your onions, face down so they start to sear and cook in the oil. Cook for about 4 minutes, add the tomato paste and saute, stirring regularly for about ten minutes or until the tomato paste is fragrant, add the harissa and continue to cook for another 3 or minutes being careful not to let anything burn. Add the chicken legs and stir well, coating them in the paste and oil and cook for another 5 minutes. Begin to add your vegetables, keeping ones that will cook more quickly towards the top of the pot (zucchini). Submerge everything with water and add the coriander and a generous amount of salt. Cover the pot and wait for it to boil.
In the top perforated pot that will sit on top of your stew, mix together couscous and oil, mixing well, add the boiling water and continue to mix until it is all incorporated (not too much mixing here, or the couscous will turn to mush). Place the couscous pot over the boiling stew and cover, reducing the heat to medium. Allow the flavors of the stew to cook into the couscous for 25 minutes. At this point, stir the pot, see how the couscous is cooking and how the vegetables are doing. If any vegetables are done cooking, you can remove them from the pot and set them aside until you are ready to serve. Add the garbanzo beans and continue cooking the stew uncovered until the couscous is tender and the chicken is cooked through (about 10 more minutes) (internal temperature of 165).
At this point, remove all of the ingredients from your stew and set them in a bowl, covered so they stay warm. Add 1 ⅓ cup of the broth into the couscous and fluff well with a fork, taste for seasoning and adjust to your liking. Chop the vegetables into bite sized pieces and arrange all of the ingredients on top of the couscous in a beautiful mandala finishing with garbanzo beans. Serve with small pitchers of the remaining sauce for your guests to add to their stew as they see fit and finish with freshly cracked pepper!
