Harissa-Spiced Pasta and Chicken with Green Beans

I live in the South and travel a lot. Food is wonderful and making food fills most days because I am diabetic and need to make my own food most of the time. I am Jewish and love Southern, Asian, Mexican, traditional Jewish and Israeli foods. I live in the south and learned to love that too. And then there all the other foods from all the other countries! After living 20 YEARS IN Germany, I LOVE German bread and still seek to find a good bread recipe, but now I must make it Keto. Talk about an impossible mission. But I keep going, trying new stuff and collecting recipes I wish I could eat, but my appetite is bigger than my tummy, so I go on collecting more and more recipes for the day I can try them all.

The idea for this one-pot dinner came from macroona mbakbka, which sometimes is called the national dish of Libya. Pasta made its way into Libyan cooking as a result of Italian colonization during the early to mid-20th century, and for mbakbka, it’s paired with spices, tomato and chicken (sometimes other types of meat). For our version, we use harissa, a North African spice paste, as a simple way to incorporate both chili heat and a mixture of aromatic spices. We also add green beans to round out the dish. For mild palates or if the harissa you purchase is especially spicy, use the lesser amount; for bolder heat, use the larger quantity, and offer more at the table, too.

1½ pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces

1 to 2 tablespoons harissa paste

Kosher salt and ground black pepper

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

⅓ cup tomato paste

1 medium yellow onion, chopped

4 medium garlic cloves, minced

¾ teaspoon ground allspice

1 pound medium pasta shells

8 ounces green beans, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces

3 cups boiling water

½ cup finely chopped fresh mint or flat-leaf parsley

Note: Ingredients may have been altered from the original.

Directions at 177milkstreet.com

Never lose a recipe again, not even if the original website goes away! Use the Copy Me That button to create your own complete copy of any recipe that you find online. Learn more! It's free!

Page footer