This week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe is a chicken couscous dish (I know – a break from fish!) which I was looking forward to for a while because I love Moroccan spices and flavours – this dish did not disappoint. I’d planned to make this with skin-on chicken thighs but realised too late that I had accidentally picked up skinless ones – oh well, at the end of the day, apart from a little colour it didn’t change things much.
It’s a really easy dish to pull together – even on a weeknight – and it’s comforting and warming so, perfect for this ridiculous cold snap we seem to be having (-25˚ WITHOUT the wind chill? Please…). I chopped my veggies a little larger than Dorie suggests and cooked them all together in the fragrant broth of ginger, cumin, turmeric, saffron and cinnamon. We ate this with some harissa (more for some people than others, ahem, Mr Neil) and plain couscous, cooked in some of the broth from the stew and it was fantastic for a quick but hearty Sunday dinner. I’ve also been eating the leftovers as a kind of soup, shredding the chicken and adding a tiny amount of couscous. It’s good stuff.
Get Dorie Greenspan’s chicken couscous recipe here or on p 214 of Around my French Table.
French Fridays with Dorie participants do not publish the recipes on our blogs, we prefer if you purchase Around My French Table for yourselves which you can do here on Amazon or Amazon Canada. Or for free worldwide shipping, buy from The Book Depository. Go on, treat yourself then join us here!
Please note: The product links from Amazon, Amazon.ca and The Book Depository are affiliate links, meaning if you click over and purchase something, I will receive a very small percentage of the purchase price which goes towards maintaining eat. live. travel. write. Thank you in advance!
NEW DATES: Want to experience Paris differently? Join me with AYA Life for a trip to Paris like no other – “like a local”. July 2015! Details here.
Canadians – win a copy of Brown Eggs and Jam Jars! Closes Wednesday February 18th 6pm EST. Details here.
Yes, -27(C) temps have been way too common here this winter (This weekend, the windchills are supposed to bring it down to -40 – BRRR!). Stay warm!
This was a relativly easy dish – the spicy heat from the seasonings were just right for these cold temps.
Hopefully, next week’s lobster won’t be too fishy for you. (Perhaps Mr. Neil will enjoy?)
Boo for the cold weather. And lobster, I love so I’m happy. (We’ll be using tails though, not whole, LIVE lobsters!)
Pease, please…let’s get live lobsters – I’ll kill them!
I don’t think that’s going to happen!
I’m sharing mine next week, but had to go with French herbs instead of the Moroccan route to appease Bill 🙂 Glad you had another dish you were able to eat and to enjoy 🙂
Well to be fair, I have eaten and enjoyed the vast majority of dishes from AMFT… 😉
A delightful winter dish. I found it perhaps a tad too liquid-y.
Wonderful with the harissa. Transported me right back to North Africa, it’s such a distinctive heat. I recall when there, just sitting around having French bread and dipping in great dishes of harissa. Mmmmm.
(A note on Mardi’s slight change from Dorie’s recipe: methinks she cut the veggies larger, so easier for Mr. Neil to push those carrots aside. Mucho gusto. 😉 )
LOL re the carrots 😉 And yes the flavours of this were reminiscent of trips to North Africa!
Wonderful recipe, enjoyed by all. A perfect dish for this miserable cold weather. Great weekend to all.
Definitely the spices brighten any day up!
your weather sounds as wonderful as ours… note the sarcasm. what a perfect dish for such a day!
It’s great cold weather comfort food!
I loved how easy and tasty this was – yours looks delish.
Wasn’t it?
I’m with Mr Neil… love the harissa… so glad to get turned on to a new spice mix.
We’re big time harissa fans from way back!
Funny, I was just thinking about making a couscous like this! It must be the weather 😉
It’s perfect for this weather!
I served the chicken veg stew with the couscous and a bowl of broth on the side. Very nice.
Yes we served with couscous and I drained off much of the liquid for the original bowls but it worked well as soup too!
Brr, that’s hard core winter you’re having over there. Frankfurt has a very temperate climate which rarely sinks below freezing. I do miss the snow, we haven’t seen much of it the past few years. But I do not miss the extreme cold.
Hard core yes. I would rather more snow than the freezing temps!
Good stuff, indeed! You didn’t miss anything by buying skinless, in fact, I think you inadvertently improved it. -25 is cold, even in Celsius. Stay warm this weekend.
I’ll make this again with skinless thighs, for sure!
Now I am even more bummed I didn’t try the harissa this week. Lovely chicken and yes, I am ready for Spring and then some. We are doing lobsters tails,btw. I will do another fish week but I can not boil something to death and don’t feel like getting into the whole knife to the neck before killing. forget it.
Right? Tails all the way!
Good stuff, indeed. Funny, I am one of those non-Harissa lovers although I have only used it once. But, I used all the other spices and doubled down on the saffron plus added dried fruit and almonds. Like you, I never tired of it throughout the week. It made three meals. I actually think I will make it sans skin the next time. Just don’t need those extra calories.
Yeah I was happy with how this turned out with thighs, not whole pieces of chicken…
I had the last of the leftovers today and the aroma was so wonderful! I used skinless thighs, as well. I think they had just enough fat on them to flavour the broth well. I like your idea of serving the leftovers as more of a soup.
I will try to stop talking about the weather in Vancouver.
The soup is a revelation, for sure!
Mardi stick to your guns with the lobster tails:) That’s what we used and it worked beautifully. As for this dish, I agree with Mr. Neil that it was a little too liquidy. I also seem to be missing this Harissa ingredient.
Right but the liquid produced a new dish – couscous soup!
Mardi, what a nice presentation with that lovely soup plate and the spice paste – glad you enjoyed this recipe and the lovely left-overs too!
Hope that the harsh winter weather has eased up a bit…
Andrea
Yes I think the leftovers were the best part!