Spiced Chicken with Date and Almond Couscous

Are you looking for a really easy tasty meal?  Then this is the one for you!  I found this recipe in this month's Good Taste Magazine.  It actually calls for turkey, but I was unable to get any, so I used the next best thing - chicken!!!

I have made a few minor "tweaks" to the recipe, mainly to suit my tastes, but it is fairly similar to the one printed in the magazine.


Now at this point I think I need to come clean on something - one of my Dear Readers asked me recently if "the Darlings" are so fussy - do I actually make 2 meals each night?  Well the answer to that is yes, and no.  What I did with this meal is that I didn't put the spice mix on the chicken for "The Darlings, and I also didn't give then the couscous - I gave them plain boiled rice.  I told you they are hard to feed!!!  So even though I ostensibly made one meal - I modified it slightly for those less culinarily matured!

Spiced Chicken with Date and Almond Couscous


Serves 4

1 cup couscous
1 cup of boiling water
1 tbs concentrated vegetable stock *
2 tsp ground coriander
3 tsp ground cumin
2 double chicken breasts
3tbs olive oil
1/2 cup continental parsley leaves, coarsely chopped
1 small red onion, halved, then thinly sliced
1/3 cup dried dates, finely chopped
1/3 cup blanched almonds, coarsely chopped
2 tbs fresh orange juice
10g butter

Place couscous in a heatproof bowl.  Add the concentrated stock and boiling water.  Cover with plastic wrap.  Set aside for 5 minutes, or until the liquid is absorbed.  use a fork to fluff the grains.

Combine the coriander and 2 tsp of the cumin in a bowl.  Sprinkle over both sides of the chicken.  Heat the olive oil in a large non stick frying pan over high heat.  Cook the chicken for 5-6 minutes each side, or until golden and cooked through - this will depend on the thickness of the breast) - you may like to pound the breasts with a meat mallet to make them a uniform thickness to speed up cooking time).

Transfer to a plate.

To the oil that is left in the frypan add the butter, and then the onion slices.  Cook for 3-4 minutes, or until softened slightly.

Mix together the orange juice and 1 tbs of olive oil, with 1 tsp of cumin.  Season with salt and pepper.

Stir the parsley, onion, date and almond into the couscous.  Add the orange juice mixture.  Mix the couscous well to incorporate all ingredients.

Slice the chicken into thick slices.

Divide the couscous among the serving plates, top with chicken slices.

* I used the concentrated vegetable stock that I made the other day with the Thermomix.  You can substitute a stock cube, or you could replace the boiling water with liquid stock.