Burnin’ Down The House

Serves 2.

Ingredients:
A note to Americans: I’m using UK measurements, and UK teaspoons/tablespoons/etc are slightly different to the US versions, so I’ll put the measurements in ml as well so you can work it out yourselves, rather than give you amounts like “1.83 US teaspoons”.

4 chicken thighs, skinned
A pinch of saffron (or alternatively 1 tsp/5ml of tumeric)
Half a chicken stock cube
2 tbsp/30ml olive oil
1 small onion
Half a red (or green or whatever) bell pepper
2 cloves of garlic
1 tsp/5ml ground cinnamon
2 tbsp/30ml honey
0.5 tsp/2.5ml mild chilli powder (or more if you like it spicy, I use 1 tsp/5ml)
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
100g of cous cous
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

A note on the cous cous: I used a packet of Ainsley Harriot’s Spicy Sensation Cous Cous, but you can just as easily use plain cous cous or a packet of flavoured cous cous. Brits, you can probably find Ainsley Harriot cous cous in your local supermarket, and Sainsburys, at least, do a packet of Morrocan style cous cous. But it doesn’t really matter if you use the plain stuff, as there’s plenty of sauce left over to flavour it.

Preparation:
1. Crumble the half a stock cube into a measuring jug and add the saffron (or tumeric). Pour in 300ml/half a pint of boiling water and leave to one side.
2. Peel and finely chop the onions and garlic, and de-seed and chop the bell pepper into roughly 1 inch squares.
3. Skin the chicken thighs if they are not already, and season them with the salt and pepper. Wash your hands after handling raw chicken!
4. Heat the olive oil over a medium-low heat in a large frying pan or saucepan. Add the chicken thighs, being careful of spitting oil. You might want to wear an oven glove to avoid getting burnt by the oil, as I found it can spatter quite a bit.
Cook the chicken for 5-10 minutes, turning occasionally, until golden brown:

5. Add the onions, garlic, and bell pepper (not shown because I’m a moron and forgot to use it) to the pan. Cook for a further 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the onions are translucent:

6. Add the cinnamon, chilli powder, chicken stock, and honey. Bring to a simmer (i.e. barely boiling), cover (my frying pan doesn’t have a lid so I used a pizza tray thing), and cook for 15 minutes.
7. While the chicken is cooking, make your cous cous (about 100g of the dried stuff, i.e. roughly enough for 2 people) according to the instructions on the packet, and leave in a covered saucepan/bowl to keep warm (not over heat, though).
8. Once the chicken is cooked (check inside to see if the juices are clear, if so the chicken is done), remove the thighs from the pan and keep warm. I put them in with the cous cous:

Raise the heat under the frying pan to boil the sauce, and reduce it by about a 1/3. This will take 4-5 minutes and you should notice the sauce become thicker and more syrupy:

9. Mix the lemon juice into the sauce, and serve.

[see this recipe with a whole load more photos and a few extra words here]

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 9th, 2005 at 9:34 pm and is filed under Main meal, Chicken. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.