How beautiful it is to travel and also from your own home with this Moroccan-style chicken and vegetable cous cous. It is also known as the cous cous of the seven vegetables, although this time we have changed its traditional ingredients a bit.
The cous cous or couscous is a traditional Maghreb dish, which is made with wheat semolina and is accompanied by a meat and vegetables guide. We can also prepare it with lamb and incorporate chickpeas and nuts.
Ingredients:
(For 8 persons).
- 500 gr. of couscous semolina.
- 800 gr. chicken thighs or hindquarters.
- 3 carrots
- 2 zucchini.
- 3 ripe tomatoes.
- 100 gr. pumpkin.
- 2 turnips
- 4 garlic cloves.
- 2 onions.
- 1 tablespoon of turmeric.
- 1 tablespoon of ground cumin.
- 1 tablespoon of ground ginger.
- 1 pinch of ground chillies.
- 1 pinch of ground black pepper.
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 1 branch of fresh parsley.
- 1 branch of fresh coriander.
- 1 bay leaf.
- Water to cook, the necessary.
- Olive oil and salt.
Preparation of chicken and vegetable couscous:
The chicken must be cut into medium pieces, not very small. We can ask the butcher to cut it to our liking. Optionally, we can also remove the skin and bones if we prefer.
We put the chicken in a bowl and add 2 tablespoons of oil, salt to taste, cumin, ginger, turmeric and a pinch of ground chilli and pepper. We move so that the meat is well impregnated of all spices.
Peel the carrots and turnips and cut them into half slices. We remove the skin and seeds from the pumpkin, and cut it into medium squares. Zucchini we will cut it with skin and the same size as the pumpkin. We remove the skin from the tomatoes and grate them in a bowl. Finally, we cut the onion into strips and chop the garlic.
Heat 3 or 4 tablespoons of olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the chicken and fry until golden on all sides, couple of minutes.
We remove the chicken and add the garlic and onion to the saucepan in the same saucepan. Before the garlic is roasted, we add the carrots, turnips, zucchini and squash. Sauté for about 5 minutes, add the grated tomato and cook 10 more minutes over low heat.
We incorporate the chicken back into the saucepan and add water until all the elements are covered. Next, we raise the heat a little so that it simmers and add the cinnamon stick, the bay leaf and the chopped parsley and coriander. Cook for 15 to 20 minutes with a lid.
To prepare the couscous, we have to take the same volume of water as semolina. We put the couscous in a large container with a pinch of salt and a little olive oil. On the other hand, we heat the water and add it to the semolina. We stir and let them rest. In a short time the couscous will have absorbed the water and will be ready.
We will serve this dish with a couscous base, with the chicken and vegetable stew on top.