Yesterday’s couscous — into tomorrow’s salad

A pot of couscous has already cooled — and the hand thinks “reheat tomorrow with butter”. Easy to leave the lump: by lunch a dry brick, the fridge smells of grain, nobody takes it. I fluff with a fork, a little oil or lemon juice, into the cold — so tomorrow the couscous sits in a salad grain by grain, not a grey lump.

Yesterday’s couscous — into tomorrow’s salad. Leftover cooked rice is another note; leftover pasta its own; leftover cooked beans another story. Here it’s the couscous after supper itself: cold, fluffy, greens and veg from the board — not a lecture about “the perfect restaurant bowl”.

One to two days in the fridge if it still smells of itself, not sour. Wet or with a grey film — bin, not “nobody will notice in a salad”. I’m not writing a new Moroccan review in this note — it’s about the grain already cooked at ours and waiting for tomorrow’s bowl.

I don’t need couscous that quietly turns into a brick. I need a portion from which tomorrow the hand builds a salad without shame. At yours does yesterday’s couscous leave into a salad — or already wait “reheat with butter” until it dries out?