Harissa Chicken with Spiced Cous Cous
Been experimenting quite a lot in the kitchen of late due to my low cholesterol diet. If I am entirely honest the results have been decided mixed, but last night we had one in the “win” column and I thought I’d publish it here (as much so I don’t forget how I did it as thinking my readers might be interested!).
So I wanted something spicy, and Sugar Snap Peas were on offer in Morrisons and this is what I came up with.
Ingredients
300g Diced Chicken (I used Quorn chicken style pieces as it happens)
2 Peppers (One red one yellow)
100g Sugar snap peas
8 Shallots
Garlic
Cumin
Corriander
Harissa Paste
Tomato Puree
Moroccan Spice Mix (Ras el hanout , or just some Schwartz Moroccan stuff)
150g Cous Cous
Cherry Tomatos
Spicy green leaf salad
Method
Preheat the oven to 150 Degrees Centigrade. Put about 15 cherry tomatoes on a baking tray and roast for about half hour.
Half the shallots and break them apart, this doesn’t have to be done perfectly, then lightly fry in a small amount of groundnut oil with some garlic until starting to soften but not caramelise. Cut the peppers into squares and add to the mix and cook until they also start to soften. Then put this aside. In the same pan cook your chicken/quorn pieces and when nearly done add two big teaspoons of Harissa, a squirt of tomato puree and a teaspoon of ground cumin. Then re add the shallots and peppers, get it all nicely mixed up.
Next put a heaped teaspoon of your Moroccan spice mix into the cous cous in a pyrex bowl. Cover in boiling water, stir very well (to mix the spices in with the cous cous) cover the bowl and leave for 5 minutes. In this time add the sugar snap peas (halved or in thirds depending on the size) to the chicken mix, you want them to have warmed up but still be really crunchy.
Serve with a green leaf salad (I like spinach, rocket and water cress for this kind of thing) and a couple of the roasted tomatoes.
Serves 3-4
It went pretty well I thought. It was a little dry so if I do it again I might make some sort of a salsa, or have some kind of a yoghurt based dip but it was pretty good. And I also the chicken stuff will make nice wraps to take to work for packed lunch.
