Ras el hanout chicken (2)

I bought some ras el hanout (couscous spice) from Birgit at The Spice Shop and have been messing about for ages finding recipes to use it in. It's a wonderful warm spicy mix, reminiscent of Arabian cuisine. I notice that Bart's Spices now produce one, but I doubt if it'll be as good as Birgit's!

This recipe is my variation on the original recipe, tailored to my taste and using ingredients available at the time. I can't help meddling with recipes!

Ras el hanout chicken (2)

Ras el hanout chicken and couscous
Servings:	Serves 4
Calories per serving:	609
Ready in:	55 minutes
Prep. time:	10 minutes
Cook time:	45 minutes
Difficulty:
Recipe author:	JuliaBalbilla
First published:	19th January 2013

Best recipe review Spicy! 4/5 Thanks Birgit The Judge

Ready to simmer

Ingredients

Printable 🖨 shopping 🛒 list & 👩‍🍳 method for this recipe

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 onion, peeled and chopped
• 4 cloves of garlic peeled and crushed - or to taste
• 1 small head of celery, chopped, leaves as well if you have them
• 2 carrots, cut in half lengthways and sliced thickly
• 1 sweet pepper, any colour, chopped - I only had a half left.
• 310g skinless chicken breasts, cut into thin strips
• 3 teaspoons ras el hanout
• 2 teaspoons of ground cumin seeds (white)
• 3 fresh red chillies, chopped
• 400g can of plum tomatoes, chopped
• 1 tablespoon tomato puree
• 300ml hot chicken stock (make from a Knorr stock cube if you wish)
• 1 410g can of chick peas or the equivalent amount of dried beans, cooked
• 1 teaspoon of dried parsley if no fresh is available.
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

1. Heat the oil in a large pan or wok, add a good grind of black pepper to it and then add the carrots, celery, onions and garlic and sweat them down for 10 minutes
2. Remove and reserve.
3. Increase the heat, add a little more oil if needed and brown the chicken strips for 4 minutes or so
4. Stir in the spices, mix and continue to heat for a few more minutes
5. Return the previously reserved onion mixture (from point 2) to the pan, add the tomatoes, sweet peppers, parsley, chillies, chickpeas and the stock. Season to taste with salt
6. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer, covered for 25 minutes or so.

Serving suggestions

Serve with plain rice of couscous.

See also

• Another version of this recipe.

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