This delicious Middle Eastern salad will feed and impress your guests. It’s full of nutrition that you can serve as main course if you wish. I always serve more dishes for my guest so I would recommend to serve this dish with hummus or with the eggplant tahini dish. The couscous will be cooked with vegetable broth and flavored with cinnamon. Then it will be added to the salad mix. Finally, we will add the basil flavord freshly squeezed olive oil on top of salad to give it the tasty touch.    

Serving for 4 people
Time to make: 35 mins

To make the salad you will need to have the following: 

• A bunch of Arugula 
• Half bunch of Parsley
• 5 cucumbers cut in small cubes 
• A mix of 8 chopped heirloom cherry tomatoes 
• 3 chopped shallots
• 1/2 orange bell pepper cut in small cubes  
• 1/2 lemon 
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• Vegetable broth  (you can use vegetable stock cube to prepare the broth) 
• 2 tbsp Basil Olive oil, you can buy the same fresh olive oil I used from here
• 4 tsp virgin olive oil  
• 1 and 1/2 cup of couscous
• 4 cups of water
• 1 tsp of salt        

Steps to Prepare:

Step 1:

In a pot, add the vegetable stock cube with 1 tbsp olive oil and simmer for 3 mins. Then add 4 cups of water till boil & the cinnamon sticks (about 10 mins). Place a side

Step 2:

In a skillet, add 2 tbsp of virgin olive oil to medium heated skillet and add the couscous to simmer. Pour the broth gradually over the couscous, one cup every 5 mins and stir. Ensure that the couscous absorb the broth before you add more. Add the salt to the couscous in between. Stir till the couscous becomes brown. Then squeeze the lemon at the end. This process should take about 20 mins. Keep the couscous to cool down for 5 mins.  

Step 3:

In a large salad bowl, mix all vegetables together. Add the cooked couscous on top of it, pour the basil flavored olive oil and mix. The salad should be ready to serve.