Moroccan Spiced Chicken Stew with Couscous - Deliciously easy to make

As a continuation of my post on Moroccan Spices Mix earlier, I thought, might as well sharing with you a simple recipe of the Moroccan spiced Chicken Stew.
First time I had Moroccan food was when I lived in New York many years back. I remembered a very complex  taste of it. Moroccan cuisines are mixture of African, Middle Eastern, Arab, Mediterranean influences. Chicken, lamb, beef and other meats are widely used for dishes along with bread and salad. Couscous is a delicacy enjoyed by locals until now. A cup of mint tea is usually drunk to end the meal.
So what we do here is a simple chicken stew and couscous that I used Moroccan spice to jazz it up. Best part of all is that it is very simple and you could easily prepare this for a weekday dinner.

Moroccan spiced Chicken Stew with Couscous

Moroccan Spiced Chicken Stew with Couscous
Makes: 3-4 servings

Ingredients:
400-500 grams skinless chicken thigh. Once boned & diced you should have about 300 grams of chicken meat. Add more if you are meat lover.
medium onion, cut into about 1 inch thick
medium carrot, cut into about 1 inch thick
medium zucchini, cut into about 1 inch thick
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 tablespoon resins
1 1/2 tablespoon Moroccan spices mixture
1/2 cup fresh parsley, finely chopped
2 tablespoon vegetable oil, divided
1 1/2 tablespoon unsalted butter, divided
2 cup low sodium chicken stock, divided
1 cup water, divided
1 cup dry couscous
3 piece sun-dried tomato, julienned
1/4 cup mint leaves, julienned
salt & freshly ground black pepper to taste

Directions:
- Season diced chicken meat with salt, pepper and about 1/2 tablespoon of spice mix. Set aside.

Dry roast the spice mix

Spice mixture with oil

- Heat up pot to medium heat. Dry roast spices until fragrance.
- Add about 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil into the spices.

Add in all chopped vegetable

- Stir in garlic, onion, carrot and zucchini for couple of minutes until they are lightly cooked.
- Remove from pot and set aside.
- In the same pot, heat up the rest of vegetable oil then stir in the marinated chicken along with bones.
- Cook through then add 1 cup of chicken stock and 1 tablespoon of spice mix and bring to boil.
- Lower the heat and let simmer for 10 minutes or until chicken are soft.
- Add in vegetable, resins and 1 tablespoon of butter let simmer for couple more minutes.
- Remove bones from the soup.
- Taste. If it is too salty from chicken stock, add some water.
- Add salt & pepper as needed to suite your taste.
- Stir in some parsley.

Now, we are done with the stew

While the chicken is simmering away you can prepare couscous.
- Bring 1 cup of chicken stock and 1/2 cup of water to boil.
- Once boil, stir in couscous,1/2 tablespoon of butter and sprinkle a pinch of Moroccan spices mix
- Remove from heat. Let it sits until couscous soak up all soup. About 10 minutes.
- Fluff it up with folk.
- Stir in sun-dried tomato and mint.

Couscous is ready

Bon Appetit

In a deep dish, serve couscous with Moroccan Spiced Chicken Stew. I found sprinkling a little bit of the Moroccan spice on top gave more kick to this deliciously easy to make dish. Bon Appetit!