Chicken and giant couscous broth
Prep time: 15 minsTotal time: 
Chicken and giant couscous broth
Prep time: 15 minsTotal time: 
Ed Smith
Ed Smith
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp vegetable oil
- 3 echalion shallots, peeled, trimmed and halved lengthways
- 1 garlic clove, crushed
- 100ml dry vermouth or sherry
- 500ml fresh chicken stock
- ½ x 15g pack thyme, leaves picked
- 75g wholewheat giant couscous
- 2 skinless chicken breast fillets (approx 360g)
- 100g cavolo nero, leaves stripped from the woody stalks and torn (or ready-prepared)
- zest and juice of ½ lemon
Step by step
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Heat the oil in a medium-sized, heavy-bottomed saucepan and place over a medium- high heat. Add the shallots cut-side down. Caramelise the shallots for 4 minutes without turning them.
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Add the garlic and vermouth into the pan, allowing it to bubble up for 30 seconds then add the stock, thyme, giant couscous and 100ml of just-boiled water to the pan and bring to the boil. Add the chicken breasts to the pan and immediately turn the heat down to a very gentle simmer. Cook for 12 minutes. In the final 4 minutes of cooking, add the cavolo nero.
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To finish, remove the pan from the heat, and lift the chicken breasts out onto a board. Add lemon juice to the broth and ladle the couscous, shallots, cavolo nero and broth into 2 bowls. Slice the chicken breasts thickly, add to the bowls and sprinkle over the lemon zest.
