Chicken with Couscous

Here's something yummy and quick - inspired from here.

I sometimes find couscous a bit bland, but this recipe packs so much flavour, hands up I'll never look at couscous the same way again!

Here's what I used:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 onion, diced thinly
• 2 large chicken breasts, diced
• Salt, Pepper
• Garlic Granules
• Ground Ginger
• 1 heaped teaspoon of harissa paste (we are wimps - use more if you like it hot and spicy)
• Dried apricots (about 10), diced thinly
• 1 can of chickpeas (I used Napolina as I find them softer than other brands)
• 200 g couscous
• 1 ½ cups of chicken stock, made with one stock cube (I used Knorr)
• Ground Coriander (unfortunately I didn't have any fresh available)

Here's how I did it:

Sauté onions in olive oil until translucid.
Add chicken, season with salt, pepper and garlic granules (be generous with the garlic). Let the chicken cook through.

Add harissa paste and ginger, stir and make sure chicken is coated with the paste. Let it cook for +/- 2 minutes.

Add the apricots and chickpeas (previously drained and washed).

Pour stock into pan, cover and let it simmer for 5 minutes.

Sprinkle a bit of coriander on top and fluff the couscous.

Serve it up!

It doesn't look like much, but let me tell you... this was absolutely delicious!

Yummo!

Roast Chicken - Portuguese style!

A case of Achilles tendonitis has been bothering me and making me feel pretty useless; so today I really felt in need of comfort food and what's better than a bit of a taste from home, eh?

I found this recipe a while ago, which inspired tonight's dinner.
(It's in Portuguese but nothing that a web translator won't fix :p )



Here's what I used:

• 4 chicken leg quarters (I'm sure other chicken parts would work well!)
• White potatoes
• 1 tablespoon of Portuguese sweet red pepper paste (aka massa de pimentão)
• 3 garlic cloves, thinly chopped
• 1 teaspoon of lard
• 2 tablespoons of margarine
• 1 cup of white wine
• 1 cup of chicken stock
• Chorizo, cubed (or bacon)
• S & P

Peel and cut the potatoes and let them soak in salty water. Pre-heat the oven at 200ºC, clean/cut the chicken, chop garlic.

Place the chicken in oven dish and add garlic, red pepper paste, salt and pepper (be careful with the salt, as the pepper paste can be quite salty). Make sure all the chicken gets covered in it!

Drain the potatoes and place them in the dish with the chicken, mix them together so they get a bit of seasoning and colour. Throw spoons of lard and margarine on top of it. 

Add wine and stock. (Next time I'll reduce wine/stock quantities as I found it had too much liquid).

Bang it in the oven!

Make sure you turn the chicken and potatoes every now and then, every 15 minutes or so.

After +/- 40 minutes, I added the chorizo and then let it roast for another 30 minutes. 

It didn't taste quite like my mum's, but it was yummolicius nonetheless!!!

... and perhaps this is the only bright side to using crutches! Me = 1 x Fire Alarm = 0!