Masterchef night has started at our place. This is a Wednesday night thing where we buy a set of ingredients for the other person to cook something with them. There are just few rules.
1. We can buy no more than 5 ingredients
2. We can spend no more than £5
3. At least one ingredient has to be something we have never cooked before.
4. Pantry items are allowed (e.g. spices, garlic, stuff like that)
Anyway we thought this would be a bit of fun to try cooking new things.
Last night it was Mikes turn. I was nice to him and bought him these simple ingredients for his first attempt.
Chicken drumsticks
Mushrooms
Cous Cous (We have never used this in cooking before)
Rocket
And he came up with this – it’s not the best photo, but it was yummy and very tasty.
Here is Mikes recipe:
Mike talking now
I decided to make my version of ‘Spicy Chicken Couscous’
Ingredients
couscous
olive oil
1 chopped onion
chicken drumsticks
sliced almonds
curry paste
mixed fruit mix
1or 2 Coronas
I prepared the couscous by adding 150mls of boiling mushroom stock (well, water from soaking some porchini mushrooms from the night before). This I left to cool for later on.
Having discovered we had no curry paste I had to make my own.
Ingredients
1 chopped onion
2 cloves garlic
some oil
squeeze of lemon juice
2 tspn ground cumin
1 tspn ground turmeric
1 tspn freshly ground black pepper
These were all put into the food blender and blitzed untill they resembled a rough paste. If I had been orgainised I should have made the paste before the couscous and also made the couscous while the chicken was cooking. Oh well thats the benefit of hindsight.
Method
1. I softly cooked the chopped onion in a pan (2-3 minutes)
2. Then added the flesh from the chicken thighs and cooked for about 10 mins until tender and no longer raw.
3. Then the sliced almonds and curry paste were added and cooked for a further minute.
3. This was then removed from the heat and the couscous and mixed fruit stirred in.
The dinner plate was dressed with the rocket and the spicey chicken and couscous served was then added.
The Coronas were used for lubrication during the cooking and are an optional item that can be replaced with a glass or 2 of wine.
Bon apertite Jo.