Moroccan Chicken

Don't be intimidated by the long list of ingredients! I have given the maximum 'stuff' you can put in here but the first time I made it, I didn't use any tomatoes, tomato puree, apricots, pomegranate... you get the picture. So even just making this dish simpler and it's still rich, sweet and wonderfully heart warming on a chilly day. You can easily make this vegetarian by not serving with the chicken.

Moroccan Chicken

Serves: 4

Ingredients

• 4 chicken legs

• olive oil,

• 3 garlic cloves, minced

• 1 inch ginger, grated

• 1 red chilli, minced

• 1 red onion, finely sliced

• 1 red bell pepper

• 2 large tomatoes, chopped

• 1 small courgette, diced

• 2 medium carrots, sliced

• 1 small orange, juiced and grated

• 125ml chicken stock

• 150ml red wine ( you can add more as you cook it to make it richer )

• 1 tbsp tomato puree

• 2 tsp ground coriander

• 2 tsp cumin

• 1 tsp cinnamon

• 1/2 tsp turmeric

• 1 tsp honey

• healthy grains

• squeeze lemon juice and 1 tbsp zest

• 6 dried apricots, roughly chopped

• roasted almonds- roughly chopped, mint- torn, to serve

• thick yoghurt and pomegranate, to serve ( optional )

Method

- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees c. Line a tray and place the chicken on top. Drizzle with some oil and pop it into the oven until cooked through. ( about 30 minutes ).

- Add the olive oil to a frying pan and fry the onions over a medium-high heat, chilli, ginger and garlic.

- Once the aromas are released, onions are soft and the chicken is light browned, add all the spices and stir everything together. Cook for a further 2-3 minutes.

- remove this to a deep sauce pan and add the carrots, peppers, tomatoes and courgettes. Pour in the wine. Reduce it for a bit to burn off the alcohol ( 5-10 minutes ).

- Add the stock, orange juice and zest, tomato puree and honey. Stir everything together and cover. Let it simmer for 45 - 1 hour, depending on how patient you are!

- 5 minutes before serving, cook the grains ( I microwaved mine, shhhhh ) then stir though the apricots, almonds, mint, lemon juice and zest and pomegranate.

- Serve the sauce over the chicken. Dollop a good sized blob of yoghurt and enjoy with the grain mix!