Harissa Chicken & Eggplant Stew

While I love looking at pictures of delicate plates of food on Instagram, I’ll gladly forego fancy, petite bites for a hearty stew & fresh rustic bread just about every day. This recipe is definitely a simple dish. It’s a thick, tomato based stew with diced chicken thigh & charred vegetables all simmering together. The slightly spicy, Harissa spice blend gives the stew a rich, deep & earthy flavor to which I add Turmeric, & additional Cumin, Sea Salt & plenty of Garlic. I serve it up with slabs of my handsome husband’s homemade bread.

There’s lots of Harissas now available to home cooks – while the spice originated in Tunisia, there are Harissas that have a more Moroccan flavor combination. Some are red pastes & others are dry spice mixes. For this recipe I used a dry Harissa that is a blend of Paprika, Caraway, Red Chili Pepper, Cayenne, Coriander, Cumin, Garlic, Peppermint, & Sea Salt.

I bet this would go wonderfully with yogurt if your home mixes meat & dairy.

This is a great recipe to use if you are someone who buys at the Farmers Market with abandon & then comes home & wonders what you are going to do with all those vegetables. Feel free to swap fresh tomatoes for the canned ones in the recipe & shove an extra onion or pepper into the pot.