North African Friday night chicken

So-called because it takes a bit longer than my usual mid-week 30 minute meals, so I tend to cook it on Friday night when there’s a bit more time to spend in the kitchen. Serves 3-4.

Ingredients

600g chicken breasts, cut into 3 or 4 pieces
Small onion, chopped
2 medium tomatoes, chopped
1 or 2 carrots, cut into chunky slices
2 courgettes, cut into 2cm wide slices
Tablespoon sunflower oil

Herbs and spices:
teaspoon ground turmeric
teaspoon ground cumin
teaspoon ground cinnamon
Coriander leaf, dried
Parsley, dried
Pinch of saffron threads

Couscous:
Packet of lemon-flavoured couscous 110g
55g plain couscous
Dried chilli flakes.

Method

• Heat the oil in a large frying pan and brown the chicken pieces.
• Add the chopped onion and cook until it begins to soften.
• Add the turmeric and cumin.
• Pour in 350ml water, add saffron strands, ground cinnamon, a good shake of coriander leaf and parsley and the chopped tomatoes.
• Bring to the boil, add the carrots and courgettes and simmer for 25 minutes.

While it simmers, prepare the couscous:

• Boil the kettle.
• Tip the couscous from both the packet and the extra plain portion into 300ml of boiling water in a small pan. Add a shake of dried chilli flakes. Bring to the boil and immediately remove from the heat.
• Cover and leave for at least 5 minutes until all the water is absorbed.

Serve:

Serve the chicken and vegetables on top of the couscous. There will be a chicken broth which can be either served on the side or a cupful of it can be poured over the chicken and couscous.

Note about the image:

This is a variation which I cooked recently, still in the pan! I had run out of carrots and substituted them with a  small yellow pepper sliced up instead.

Moroccan lamb meatball tagine

Serve this delicious dish with couscous for an authentic Moroccan vibe. The original version of this meal came to me with an egg cooked on top, but that’s a bit much, I think. 

As this is a mid-week recipe, I use shop-bought lamb meatballs – it certainly saves both time and effort. If you are not a fan of lamb, then beef meatballs work just as well. 

I would also only use a tagine to serve at the table, maybe at the weekend! Cooking in a tagine would take additional time and adds to the washing up.

Serves four, with a prep/cooking time of 35-40 minutes. 

Ingredients

One onion, chopped

600g lamb meatballs

400g tin chopped tomatoes

One garlic clove, crushed (or a pre-squished substitute such as Very Lazy Garlic)

Ground cumin

Ground cinnamon

Paprika

Dried crushed chillies

Coriander leaf (Cilantro)

Couscous:

1 x 110g packet of lemon flavoured couscous (both Tesco (lemon & coriander) and Waitrose (lemon & garlic) do a good version).

55g plain couscous

330ml boiling water

Method

Start with the couscous

• Boil the kettle and tip the packet couscous, along with the additional plain couscous into a small pan. 
• Add 300ml of boiling water, heat the pan on a low heat just until the couscous starts to bubble. Remove from the heat, cover and leave on one side. 
• Ignore any packet instructions to add butter to the couscous. All it does is add calories!

Next, the meatballs and sauce

• Heat about one tablespoon of olive or sunflower oil in a large frying pan. On a medium heat, tip in the meatballs and moving them regularly, seal their surfaces. There’s no need to cook them through.

• Take the meatballs out of the pan and put to one side.

• Now add the onion to the pan, cooking until the pieces start to soften, scraping the meatball scraps and any juices into them.

• Add in a tablespoon of each of the herbs and spices apart from the crushed chillies. Add the garlic (optional).

• Pour in the tinned chopped tomatoes and stir.

• Add a teaspoon of dried chillies, bring to the boil.

• As soon as the tomatoes start to bubble, return the meatballs the pan, cover and simmer for 10-15 minutes on a low heat until you are sure the meat is cooked.

• Add salt and black pepper to pep up the seasoning, maybe some more coriander leaf, then serve either to the table in a tagine with couscous on the side, or directly on to plates, on a portion of couscous.