Sunday, October 11, 2009

One-Pan Chicken Couscous

We have had our old standbys of pasta with garlic and bacon and grilled cheese sandwiches countless times in the few days that I've lived here but the other night we made a one-pan chicken couscous recipe from the November issue of BBC Good Food that was so good I had to share.  

Chicken Dish

One-Pan Chicken Couscous by Emma Lewis


  • 1 tbsp olive oil

  • 1 onion, thinly sliced

  • 200g/8oz chicken breast, diced (we used Quorn)

  • good chunk fresh root ginger

  • 1 - 2 tbsp harissa paste, plus extra to serve 

  • 10 dried apricots

  • 220g can chickpeas, rinsed and drained

  • 200ml/7fl oz hot chicken stock

  • handful coriander (cilantro) chopped, to serve


1. Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan and cook the onion for 1 - 2 minutes just until softened.  Add the chicken and fry for 7 - 10 minutes until cooked through and the onions have turned golden.  Grate over the ginger, stir through the harissa to coat everything and cook for 1 minute more.

2. Tip in the apricots, chickpeas and couscous, then pour over the stock and stir once.  Cover with a lid or tightly cover the pan with foil and leave for about five minutes until the couscous has soaked up all the stock and is soft.  Fluff up the couscous with a fork and scatter over the coriander to serve.  Serve with extra harissa if you like.

Serves 4

We like couscous so much that we added nearly double what the recipe calls for and we also just about doubled the harissa paste as well.  The recipe says it preps in five minutes and cooks in ten which we initially laughed at but the recipe was right. It's a fantastic, quick dish that we'll be making again soon. 

The photo was actually taken of the leftovers we had for lunch today. :)



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