Egyptian Style Dukkah Chicken

With Flaked Almond and Coriander Couscous, and Flatbread

As with many things I cook, I was inspired while watching a food programme (in this case, the latest series of Great British Menu), where one chef mentioned that he was using a dukkah spice mix. I’d never heard of this before, so I googled it and realised that I already had almost everything that I needed to make it, except some pistachio nuts, so I picked some up from the supermarket and made the spice mix. There are many variations of dukkah mixes online, so it’s impossible to find an “official” version as such, as everybody seems to make it their own way, but the fundamental thing across all of these versions is that it’s basically a ground mix of nuts, seeds and spices.

This makes it quite different to the usual spices mixes that I make for Indian/African/Moroccan food etc. so I thought it would be a nice thing to try. Plus, it was partly in honour of the Egyptian Mo Salah, with Liverpool winning the premier league title at the weekend! :-)

There are a few different nuts mentioned in various dukkah recipes online. The most common one that people seem to use is hazelnuts, but they are quite hard to find in Kenya. The second most common is pistachios and a) I love pistachios, and b) I know I can easily buy them here, so I used those. Other options are almonds and walnuts.

As for spices and seeds, sesame seeds, coriander seeds, and cumin seeds seem to be universally recognised as key ingredients of a dukkah, and optionally fennel seeds, which I also love, so I added them too. You can also add sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds which I might do next time, as I always have some of those in the house for when I make my own bread. Also, I only discovered sumac quite recently, and really like it, so I added some of that too as it was mentioned on the list of optional items for a dukkah mix. And I added some chilli flakes, made from my own homegrown and sundried chillies.

So, here’s all the ingredients for my dukkah mix. As for quantities, I made enough for one meal, but you can of course make a lot more and store it, as I will next time now that I know it’s so nice!

I used a teaspoon of cumin seeds, coriander seeds, fennel seeds and chilli flakes, a tablespoon of sesame seeds and sumac, and around thirty pistachio nuts, and a pinch of salt:

Firstly toast, in a dry frying pan, all of the whole spices and seeds, and the nuts, just for a minute or two. This makes a huge difference and is a very important step:

Then simply add the remaining ingredients and grind to a powder. Some say to use a mortar and pestle for the nuts, so that they keep a bit of crunch, so with my electric grinder I just kept an eye on it and stopped before the nuts were completely powdered. You can see the pistachio fragments in the resulting spice mix:

Now, simply roll your chicken breasts in beaten eggs, and then in the spice mix:

I then sprayed the chicken breasts with sunflower oil and cooked them in the air fryer for about 15 minutes on 200 degrees, which I would say was very slightly over, so next time I’ll check it after 13 minutes or so.

I made the couscous the same way as I made it for the Moroccan tagine (recipe here) except that this time I toasted the flaked almonds in a dry frying pan for a minute or two before adding them to the couscous, which added a very nice texture and flavour to the couscous. And, as with the tagine, I didn’t make my own flatbread this time as I have some very nice shop bought ones to use up, that are very quick and easy.

Enjoy!