Seasonal local food recipe No 94: Couscous with chicken and baby spinach

A variation on a recipe by Angela Hartnett that uses pea shoots but we can use the spinach from this week’s boxes instead. You can either cook the chicken from fresh or it’s an excellent way of using up some leftovers.

Serves 4 as a starter or 2 as a main
Preparation and cooking: 40 minutes or so if cooking the chicken, much less if not

Ingredients
olive oil
4 chicken thighs
salt and pepper
1 clove crushed garlic
1 sprig rosemary
250g instant couscous
400ml boiling water
2 spring onions, sliced
½ tsp ground ginger
1 dsp raisins
1 dsp chopped hazelnuts
4 salad radishes, sliced
50ml vinaigrette
½ tsp pesto
½ handful baby spinach or pea shoots

Method
Heat a touch of olive oil in a frying pan. Season the chicken with salt and pepper and cook together with the crushed garlic and rosemary over a medium heat for 15-20 minutes, turning occasionally until it is golden brown and a knife can go through it easily. If it appears to be dry, add a touch of water. Once it is cooked, allow it to cool and either shred the meat or remove the bone and slice into strips, skin and all.

While the chicken is cooling, turn your attention to the couscous. Place it in a bowl with a pinch of salt and 1 tbsp of olive oil, add the 400ml of boiling water, stir and cover with a plate or clingfilm. Leave for five minutes before removing the cover and breaking the couscous up with a fork. Then add the chicken and remaining ingredients. Mix well and check the seasoning.

Serve in a large bowl at room temperature.

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Seasonal local veg in this week’s boxes

This week’s boxes will all look a bit smaller but the value is still there. Expert grower Jane Mellowship says:

There are so few local vegetables available at the moment I’ve had to include asparagus in the standard boxes even though it’s not cheap to buy, but we can’t keep adding extras as it would make it all rather expensive.

Of course, we have to remember that this is the hopefully brief “hungry gap” and what we are getting in our boxes is locally grown and certainly seasonal. The contents of this week’s generous salad bags were all grown on the Camel CSA plot and it was good to see young broad bean and pea plants appearing on the plot this morning in spite of the lack of rain. Good things to look forward to!

Everyone will have:
potatoes (Burlerrow Farm, St Mabyn)
* leeks (Jeremy Brown, St Kew Harvest)
* spring greens (Mark Norman)
* salad bags (Camel CSA)
* spinach (Jeremy)

Standard boxes will have extra potatoes plus:
asparagus (Lower Croan, Sladesbridge)
swede (Growfair, Cornwall)

* = grown to organic principles

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