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Hi this is Alia and welcome back to Cooking With Alia to show you the mix of the flavors of Morocco.
One of my favorite Moroccan dishes is of course Couscous!
We basically eat it every Friday
It's a dome of couscous topped with chicken or meat and vegetables.
But today, we're going to bring it twisted by putting the couscous inside the chicken then cooking the chicken
and we're going to bring more sweet and savory flavors which are very popular in Morocco.
By topping the chicken with caramelized onions. YUM!
This dish has multiple steps, but the very very easy
So just keep up with the video and you're going to be successful.
If you need the ingredients or written recipe, they are below the video in the "About" section
That's it! Let's start!
Let’s prepare the couscous filling.
First chop roasted or raw almonds for some crunch.
Then you need cooked couscous
check out my video on how to cook couscous in just 10 minutes
add orange blossom to it for the Moroccan touch
then ground cinnamon, and the chopped almonds.
Take some of the couscous for the filling – around 1 small bowl, and keep the rest for serving.
Fill your chicken with the couscous almond filling.
Then use tooth picks to close the chicken.
Now, it’s chicken marinade time.
In a bowl combine vegetable oil, salt, pepper, ground ginger
ground turmeric, and a pinch of saffron threads. Mix well.
Place the chicken in a large bowl and rub it well with the marinade.
For more flavors, you can leave the chicken to rest in the fridge a few hours before cooking it or you can use right away.
On medium heat, drizzle some olive oil in a large pot.
Once it’s a bit hot, add the chicken.
We want to cook the chicken for a few minutes from all sides
until it changes color and it is not pink anymore.
Then, add a cinnamon stick for even more flavors
and water until it reaches half the height of the chicken.
Add a nice fresh bunch of cilantro, cover your pot
and cook the chicken on medium-high.
After 15 minutes, check on the chicken, and flip it on the other side.
Cover and continue cooking for another 15-20 minutes.
The chicken is almost cooked
remove it from the pot, place in a baking pan and pour the thick sauce on top of it. Oh YUM!
Now, place a few pieces of butter on top of the chicken and to the hot oven
that you already preheated at 390 F which is 200 C.
Bake the chicken for 20 minutes or so, until the chicken gets a beautiful roasted color.
To make this dish even better, while the chicken is baking
we are going to place some finely sliced onions in the pot where the chicken cooked
add some ground turmeric, pinch of saffron, ground ginger, salt, pepper
basically the same spices as the marinade, but add some ground cinnamon!
Mix well, add a little bit of water, cover, and cook on medium heat.
You will see that the onions will start melting and absorbing all the flavors.
Check on the onions from time to time
add a little bit of water if they are too dry, stir, cover, and continue cooking for around 20 minutes.
Then, add some sugar, stir and continue cooking for another 10 minutes
until you get these beautifully sweet caramelized onions.
Ok, Now we are ready to serve!
Warm up the couscous that we had kept for serving
you can make a bed of couscous in your plate, top it with the chicken
and top the chicken with the caramelized onions.
Or, you can cut your chicken in half… WOW, check this out!
Cooked to perfection with a beautiful couscous filling, and serve individual plates
for this, I am making a couscous dome with a bowl
then placing half the chicken next to it, and using the caramelized onions as topping.
This is a dish to present to your guests!!!
You will hear a lot of wooow, yyyuuuummm, ahhhh… and all you have to say is Bonne Appetite!