Steve and I teamed up to make this dish. I was glancing through Joy of Cooking to find inspiration for chicken breast when I stumbled upon the recipe for garlic-chili paste. The paste requires a food processor or some sort of blending device, but is otherwise very easy and convenient. Simply blend (or process):
- 3/4 cup jalapeno peppers
- 1/2 cup garlic cloves
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 2 tablespoons freshly-cracked black pepper
- 1 tablespoon salt
- 2 tablespoons chili powder
- and 2 tablespoons lemon or lime zest
Then, brush the chicken pieces with a generous amount of paste (the book suggests 2 tablespoons per piece of chicken) and let the meat marinate overnight. If you are pressed for time, you can marinate the meat for two hours. Who knows? Maybe shorter would still work! I also tossed some peppers and onions in the paste so that the veggies would have the same flavor.
The next day, I baked the chicken at 350 degrees in a parchment paper envelope in order to make clean-up easier. I simultaneously baked the veggies because I was lazy and didn't want to cook them by hand. The chicken and veggies came out tasting very strongly of garlic. This paste is not for the weak. The Joy of Cooking apparently takes garlic very seriously! If you are not that into garlic, I'd suggest halving the amount of garlic (or perhaps letting the meat marinade for less time). I baked the chicken until our digital thermometer alerted us that the internal temperature had reached 165 degrees. This took about half an hour, but it will depend on the thickness of your chicken pieces.
Steve prepared the bed of couscous by caramelizing two tablespoons of tomato paste in 2 tablespoons of olive oil. He then added red pepper flakes to taste (he added just a sprinkling). Simultaneously, he dissolved a pinch of saffron in 3 cups of stock. (He used chicken stock, though whatever recipe he was referencing used fish stock. However, they were also topping the couscous with a white fish) Once the saffron had dissolved, he added the stock to the tomato paste and also poured in 1.5 cups of Israeli (pearl) couscous. Finally, he allowed the couscous to simmer on low until the desired level of tenderness was reached.