Chicken Wings and Couscous

I am never going to win awards for my photography... for a start I use my phone and I have a very demanding 17month old, so its a case of point and click! My pot and pans are old and look awful in the photos- sorry. They are clean, well used and well loved! Keeping to my stay local, spend less and cook in the mornings I dug around in the freezer and this is for dinner today! Big boy wants to make a pizza I have a nice 10 min pizza recipe not my favorite but he loves it and better than a frozen pizza. Well I say better I love pizza and if I were to cook a pizza for him I want to eat it too! Home made are nice but not the same! So today for dinner is chicken wings, couscous and corn on the cob! My friend gave me the recipe for the couscous. 

Chicken wings and Turkish style Couscous

 

I'm sorry I don't weigh the ingredients for this recipe. I live near a big Asian community so I am able to shop very cheaply for fab ingredients. For example 100g of baby spinach is £1.50 from the supermarket but from the shop near me I can by a small carrier bag full of spinach for £2.00. For this recipe you need turkel Nar Eksisi (Eksisi is the brand) which is pomegranate syrup and oncu (oncu is the brand) tatli biber. Tatli biber is a sweet pepper paste very much like tomato puree. These make the couscous taste divine!

Sweet and spicy Couscous

Ingredients

Couscous 

Olive oil (or veg)

red onion (or white red just looks nicer!)

1 tbs tomato puree

chilli flakes to taste

salt to taste

dry mint 3 heaped tablespoons 

3/4 tablespoons of nar syrup

juice of a whole fresh lemon 

once mixture is cooled add to the mix

handful of parsley

4/5 spring onions*optional if you used red onion you could use half a white onion

yellow pepper*chopped and cubed finely optional I don't always have peppers in.

3/4 fresh tomatoes chopped and cubed finely

1/2 cucumber chopped and cubed finely

this usually makes four servings, that can stay for 2/3 days in the fridge

Method

1. Add couscous to a glass bowl and add enough boiling water to cover about 1cm above the couscous.
2. chop red onion finely, take your time to chop it. Fry lightly in a good slug of olive oil till glossy looking
3. Over a medium heat add one table spoon of tomato puree and one tablespoon biber, mix and coat the onion.
4. Add the amount of chilli flakes you like, I add a generous pinch.
5. Small pinch of salt.
6. Remove from heat and add the mint and nar syrup mix and make sure everything is coated.
7. Add the juice from a whole lemon
8. Allow to cool.
9. Once mixture is cool add finely chopped parsley, spring onion, yellow pepper, tomato and cucumber.

great work lunch with leftovers. My son loves it stuffed in a hot pitta.

Quick and easy chicken wings

Chicken wings

honey

tatli biber

Chinese five spice

talti biber

tomato puree

This is another of my throw it all together recipe, adjust the amount of wet ingredients to the amount of chicken wings you have. My husband gets chicken wings free from his butcher, so we always have lots in the freezer.

1. Boil chicken wings for 10 mins.
2. Pre-heat oven to 180c
3. While chicken is cooking, make a mixture of warm runny honey, tatli biber, chinese five spice and tomato puree. Aim to make spreadable paste. If need be stand in a bowl of hot water to keep it runny. 
4. Once chicken is cooked rinse with boiling water.
5. Spread the paste over the chicken and bake untill brown and crispy.