This beautiful North African chicken dish is a cinch to prepare. The clean, strong flavours are what I love most about it – it’s not too spicy and highly aromatic. It's perfect either straight from the oven or cold, and best served whole at the table to encourage the communal aspect of eating which is often overlooked these days.
Roast chicken with chermoula and toasted Israeli couscous
Serves 4
Roast chicken
1 free-range chicken (1.6-1.8kg)
50g unsalted butter
Chermoula
4 garlic cloves
1 red chilli
60g coriander, stalks removed
60g parsley, stalks removed
125ml olive oil
5g salt
5g smoked paprika
5g ground coriander
Juice of 1 lemon
10g ground cumin
Couscous
50ml olive oil
200g Israeli couscous
200ml chicken stock
50g dried apricots
Set the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas mark 4.
First rub the chicken all over with the butter and lightly season it with salt. Place it on a baking tray and cook it in the oven for 1 hour and 10 minutes. To check the chicken is cooked, pierce a thigh with a skewer – the juices will run clear if it's done.
While the chicken cooks make the chermoula, Peel the garlic and chop the chilli, parsley and coriander, then pound them to a paste using a pestle and mortar. Add the olive oil, salt, paprika, ground coriander, lemon juice and cumin, mix well and set aside.
For the couscous, heat a saucepan with the olive oil, add the couscous and cook until golden (around 5 minutes) before adding the chicken stock. Bring to a simmer and cook with the lid on the pan for 10 minutes until all the liquid is absorbed and the couscous is soft. Now chop the apricots and add them to the couscous.
Once the chicken is cooked remove it from the oven and allow the bird to rest for 15 minutes. Carve and serve the chicken at the table with the chermoula and couscous.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here