Spicy Chicken and Date Tagine

My continuing obsession with using dates in my recipes really is getting out of hand! I promise that this will be the last recipe using them that I post for a while. This dish was partly inspired by my attempts to increase the amount of spicy food in my diet.

Ingredients 

1 tbsp ground cumin

1 tbsp ground ginger

1 tbsp cinnamon 

1 tbsp paprika

1 tbsp tumeric

375g diced chicken

2 tbsp olive oil

3 cloves of garlic

1/2 red onion

100g chestnut mushrooms 

2 tsps chilli purée

400g tin of chopped tomatoes 

150g dates

100ml cold water

Knorr chicken stockpot

Method

1. Mix all of the spices together in a small bowl.

2. Toss the diced chicken in the spice mixture until it is fully coated on every surface. Leave the chicken for 20 minutes.

3. Heat the oil in a large stir fry pan or wok. Add the chicken and cook over a medium heat until it has browned. This may take about 4 minutes but use your judgement.

4. Slice the mushrooms and finely chop the red onion and garlic. Add these to the pan and cook for another 2 - 3 minutes while stirring.

5. Chop the dates into small chunks.

6. Add the dates, chilli purée, tomatoes, water and stockpot. Stir until mixed in.

7. Reduce the heat and simmer for 20 - 25 minutes, stirring occasionally.

There are a number of ways that you can serve this. I was cooking for my eldest daughter as well as myself so I served hers on a bed of couscous.

I had mine with my favourite NoodleSlim rice so I just added that to the Tagine for a couple of minutes and stirred until the rice was heated thoroughly.

The recipe is 1141 in total. It made two very generous portions and could have easily been stretched to three particularly if you added a side salad. Two portions came to 570 calories each whereas three portions would only be 381 calories. If you decide to serve it with couscous then don't forget to add in the extra calories.

I was actually surprised by how much I enjoyed this considering the fact that it contains a lot of spices. There is a definite kick to it was it wasn't overly hot.

I also loved the fact that my daughter doesn't normally like dates but she ate this without realising there was dates in the recipe. She even rated the Tagine as 8/10 which is good as she's quite fussy. 

This is definitely a meal I will make again. Let me know if you try making it. Speak to you soon

Love Erica xxx