Chicken with tomatoes and honey

Cooking the tomatoes very slowly with the aromatic spices gives the sauce for this chicken dish a wonderfully intense flavour, which mellows when the honey is stirred in.

Serves four

Ingredients
30ml/2 tbsp sunflower oil
25g/1oz/2 tbsp butter
4 chicken quarters or 1 whole chicken, quartered
1 onion, grated or very finely chopped
1 garlic clove, crushed
5ml/1 tsp ground cinnamon
Good pinch of ground ginger
1.3-1.6kg/3-31/2lb tomatoes, skinned, cored and roughly chopped
30ml/2tbsp clear honey
50g/20z/1/3 cup blanched almonds
15ml/1 tbsp sesame seeds
Salt and ground black pepper
Moroccan corn bread, to serve

1. Heat the oil and butter in a large, flameproof casserole. Add the chicken quarters and cook over a medium heat for about 3 minutes, or until browned.

2. Add the onion, garlic, cinnamon, ginger, tomatoes and seasoning, and heat gently until the tomatoes begin to bubble.

3. Lower the heat, cover and simmer very gently for about 1 hour, stirring and turning the chicken occasionally, until it is completely cooked through.

4. Transfer the chicken pieces to a plate and then increase the heat and cook the tomatoes until the sauce is reduced to a thick puree, stirring frequently, stir in the honey, cook for 1 minute and then return the chicken to the pan and cook for 2-3 minutes to heat through. Dry-fry the almonds and sesame seeds or toast under the grill (broiler).

5. Transfer the chicken and sauce to warm serving dish and sprinkle with the almonds and sesame seeds. Serve with Moroccan corn bread.