Chicken and Chorizo Jambalaya and Homemade Harissa Paste (Digital Pressure Cooker Recipes)

Some of you may know, I'm addicted to cooking with my digital pressure cooker and I LOVE one pot recipes... especially when they are simple, easy and packed full of flavour. The fact that from start to finish, you can have this meal on the table inside 20 minutes is simply a huge extra bonus !

Last week, my husband and I went out for a meal to Marrakech Restaurant in Wymondham and had a super meal. If you live locally - do pay it a visit.. can highly recommend. Ali makes his own 3 month fermented harissa which is simply amazing.

We didn't have Oliver with us - he had a few days in Scotland with my parents. Photo below of him with my mum at the train station.

This little monster is getting huge and is now 6.1/2yo. Doesn't seem that long ago he was icing biscuits in his high chair !

My Kinda-Harissa has little to compare with that (especially since I only made it yesterday !) - but it doesn't half liven things up and makes a fab flavour infuser to add to a dish. I reckon it would make an awesome marinade too.

The harissa recipe makes about a standard mug full of paste in volume - so you'll probably want to store it in a 500ml jar or similar. I had already used about 1/4 of the paste made from this jar before the photo was taken.

For the Kinda-Harissa

6 tsp dried flaked chillies (1/2 one of those small supermarket jars)

2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp dried chopped garlic

2 tsp ground coriander

2 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp ground ginger

4 tsp smoked paprika

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 jar of Lidl sundried tomatoes (about 8)

100g of hot and sweet peppadew

3 tbsp mirin

6 x 4 > 5" long, red finger chillies - seeds and all

1 x seeded red bell pepper

75ml olive oil

Very little to this. I basically sprayed a little oil on the bell pepper and chillies and roasted in the oven for about 15mins.

Add all dry ingredients to the jar.

Blend the peppadew, pepper and finger chillies together. Add to the jar, followed by olive oil and give a good stir. Refrigerate at least over night - but I imagine flavour improves after a few days. You'll need to wait on an update for that !

Chicken and Chorizo Jambalaya (Digital Pressure Cooker recipe)

I'm sure you can adapt this as you wish. I made this today at work for lunch and volume wise, it will easily serve 3 > 4 adults. Basically, add whatever you like meat and vegetable wise to bulk it out.

I was purposely trying to cook on a budget today to see how good a meal I could make for as cheap as possible. We worked out that including the harissa paste used, this worked out approx £1.10 per serving.... cheaper and tastier than a basic sandwich !

You may want to go easy on the harissa paste until you work out how hot it is..... our jar is quite pokey.

Ingredients : 

1 x chicken breast (diced into approx 1cm pieces - to make it go further !)

g of chorizo (cut similar to above) (1/3 of a chorizo from Lidl - whole thing was £2.09)

1 cup of long grain rice (washed and uncooked)

1 x carrot, diced

1 x onion, diced

1/2 can sweetcorn

1/2 can kidney beans

1 x knorr chicken stock cube

good pinch salt

2 tablespoons of harissa (from above recipe)

2 tablespoons tomato puree (double concentrated)

Switch on digital pressure cooker and set time for 12 minutes. Timer will not start count down until the unit reaches pressure - so you can also use it on any section to brown.

Brown the chicken, chorizo and onion for just a few mins with a little oil. Be sure to use a silicone spatula or similar so not to damage non-stick coating in the bowl. 

Crumble in the stock cube and add all the other ingredients plus 325ml of water. Give it a good stir, then pop on the lid and allow to cook at pressure for 12 mins.

Carefully release steam, give a stir and it's ready to serve :-)

Sarah-Jane Nash - www.siliconemoulds.com - April 2015