I used to work in an office by a restaurant that served red ptitim - Israeli-style pearl couscous, today are cooked in some sort of tomato sauce and come out red tainted - but not wet: i.e they're not swimming in sauce: they're served just sightly moist like any other ptitim dish.  I tried to reproduce this at home by cooking the ptitim in tomato juice, tomato paste and even ketchup - but to no avail: they either come out in a lot of sauce or properly dry and not red.  What am I missing? 
I've never cooked ptitim specifically, but for Mediterranean[1] rice, bulgar, orzo or cous cous, the recipe varies only slightly - so I imaging ptitim to be very similar.  Use a ratio of 1:1.6 grain to water, by volume.  You can add optional onion/peppers etc to this. Soften first, remove & re-add just before the water, or part-soften, leave in, then proceed as follows   Sauté the grains in olive oil in a saucepan on medium heat until they start to change colour [not just clarify because of the oil, actually start to go golden]. Add approx 1tbsp per cup of grain of either tomato purée/paste, harissa paste[2] or any combination of both, then continue to sauté for another 2 minutes. Sautéing tomato paste makes it sweeter & less bitter. Add your water, straight off the boil from a kettle. Salt to taste. Give it a quick stir, drop the heat to minimum & put the lid on. Allow 13-15 minutes for the water to be absorbed. Don't take the lid off to check. At most, lift it a tiny bit & see if you can hear the crackle as the last bit is used. Switch off the heat. Put a tea-towel or paper towel over the pan top & put the lid back on over it, trapping the towel. Allow it to rest for 15 minutes. Fluff with a fork & serve.  Brighten the flavour & presentation with some fresh flat-leaf parsley. Sprinkle Aleppo pepper flakes for an extra burst of colour, heat & flavour.  [1]Generally, anywhere from Greece right round to Morocco uses a variation on this method. [2] Both will add a similar colour, but tomato adds sweetness & harissa adds spicy heat. 