A Dish for the Seasonal Shift
September arrives with all its back-to-school baggage, and resisting its grip feels futile. But food writer Georgina Hayden has found a delicious workaround: a salad that refuses to pick a side.
Her courgette and preserved lemon herby giant couscous is summer and autumn on one plate. Vibrant yet comforting. Bright herbs alongside roasted vegetables. A dish that works warm from the oven, cool from the fridge, or anywhere in between.
The Recipe
Hayden’s approach is refreshingly unfussy. Larger, homegrown courgettes can be tamed by using just two or three, and she recommends cutting them into irregular shapes to maximise surface area for that essential char.
The ingredient list reads like a celebration of late-summer produce: courgettes roasted with preserved lemon peel, whole garlic cloves, ground coriander, and sweet smoked paprika. Meanwhile, wholewheat giant couscous gets a quick boil before joining the party, dressed with parsley, mint, and finely sliced spring onions. A generous crumble of feta finishes the whole affair.
It serves four, takes ten minutes to prepare, and thirty minutes to cook.
Method in Full
Heat the oven to 240C (220C fan)/475F/gas 9. Tip the chopped courgettes, preserved lemon peel, unpeeled garlic cloves, ground coriander, and paprika into a large roasting tray. Season generously, drizzle over two tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil, and toss everything together. Roast for twenty minutes, until the edges have caught and charred.
Leave the tray to settle for a moment, then squeeze the soft garlic flesh from its papery skins back into the roasting juices. Meanwhile, bring a pan of salted water to the boil and cook the giant couscous for around eight minutes, or according to the packet. Drain, rinse under cold water, and transfer to a generous serving bowl.
Combine the roasted courgettes and their juices with the couscous. Fold through the chopped parsley, mint, and spring onions. Taste, adjust the seasoning, and crumble feta over the top just before serving.
Why It Matters
In a culinary landscape obsessed with strict sartorial rules about what belongs in which season, Hayden’s recipe offers something quietly radical: permission to enjoy both. It’s a dish engineered for the British September, when tomatoes linger on the vine but the evenings carry their first chill. Whether packed into a lunchbox, served warm alongside grilled lamb, or eaten cold straight from the fridge at midnight, it adapts to whatever the week throws at it. And in a month defined by transition, that flexibility feels like exactly the kind of cooking we need.
