Harissa Baked Chicken with Fridge Raid Bulgur Wheat Salad and Spiced Houmous

This recipe is quick, fresh and healthy and is also an ideal way to clear out your fridge of any veggies you might have lying around. It also just happens to be super tasty and has one of my favourite ingredients of all time - rose harissa. This dish doesn’t really require a recipe but here is how I do it. It’s very straightforward and you can put whatever you want in the bulgur wheat salad, this is my favourite way to cook chicken breasts though. It’s all in the marination, leaving them at room temperature for at least 30 mins before frying, frying over a medium/low heat to develop a gentle crust and then baking at a lowish temperature so it stays nice and moist.

(Serves 2 - £3.78 per portion)

1. Place the chicken breasts in a shallow dish and add 1 tbsp olive oil, 1 heaped tbsp of rose harissa, the juice of a lemon, a couple of crushed garlic cloves and some seasoning. Mix well then leave to marinade as long as possible.
2. Add some cooked bulgur wheat (you could use quinoa or cous cous as well) and whatever veggies you have in your fridge. I added some lightly fried diced courgette, chopped tomatoes, chopped parsley, a chopped red pepper, thinly sliced spring onions, crumbled feta, lemon juice, some aleppo chilli flakes and plenty of seasoning.
3. Feel free to use shop bought humous, I always follow Ottolenghi’s recipe for the creamiest, dreamiest humous. Whatever you do, jazz it up by drizzling over some olive oil, more tahini, black and white toasted sesame seeds and some chilli flakes.
4. When you’re ready to cook the chicken, fry the breasts over a medium heat until they are slightly caramelised. Put them back into the dish with the marinade, scrape out the pan and add those gribbly bits too, add a dot of butter over each breast, cover with foil and bake at 180C/160fan for 15 minutes. Leave to rest for 10 minutes before slicing.
5. Serve the sliced chicken with all its juices with the humous and bulgur salad on the side. Top with more feta, toasted almonds and whatever herbs you have (I used parsley, mint and dill). Enjoy.