One Pot Chicken Pasta

06 Jul 2010 9 Comments

by Umm Ibrahim in Chicken, Main courses Tags: Pasta, Recipes

This is a one pot pasta recipe, inspired by the Libyan M’baakibka. Cooking the pasta in the same pot as the chicken and sauce allows the pasta to absorb lots more flavour than usual so this makes for a very tasty dish with less washing up to do afterwards!

Ingredients:

• 1 medium onion, grated
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• Salt and pepper
• 1 bayleaf
• Chilli to taste
• Sprinkle of paprika
• ½ teaspoon chicken spices or Baharat/Ra’s al hanout (Arabic mixed spices)
• ½ teaspoon mixed herbs
• 1x 400g tin plum tomatoes, chopped
• 2 tablespoons tomato puree
• Several pieces of chicken on the bone according to your preference; I used a 450g pack of drumsticks
• 1 cup of petits pois peas
• 1-1.5 litres water
• 300g uncooked pasta shapes (i.e. penne pasta or fusilli)

Method:

Sautee the onion in 2 tablespoons of oil. Add the garlic and quickly fry before adding the spices & herbs; stir well then add the tomatoes and tomato puree. Leave to simmer for about 10 minutes.

Add the chicken pieces and cook in this sauce for about 10 minutes.

Now, add the peas, uncooked pasta and plenty of water – I added about 1 litre to start off with. Bring to the boil and then reduce the heat to about medium heat.

Keep checking from time to time to ensure that the pasta is not sticking to the bottom of the pan and to check the water level. Add more water whenever necessary, make sure that the sauce doesn’t dry out completely; when you serve you want it to be a bit ‘saucey’.

You can serve the pasta as it is with whole pieces of chicken or you can do as I did and remove the chicken, cut the meat off the bone and then return to the pot.