Tunisian Chicken

Finally back in my regular kitchen, so nice to have the extra space.  So one of the problems with Plated is what to do if you have a guest for dinner.  If the plan is made in advance you can maybe modify your order (either by adding if you want to make more for your guest or removing something if you plan on making something else).  My husband decided to invite his uncle over for dinner kind of last minute (invited sunday morning for sunday dinner).  My plan was to make the tunisian chicken but add rice to stretch the meal to account for the 3rd person.  I was planning on making the rice to go with this anyway as I thought just chicken in sauce was a bit lacking for a meal.  I think the rice was needed for this as the spices in the sauce are pretty heavy (the heat level is not that high, but there is a kick, but there are a lot of spices in there that make this a pretty flavorful sauce).

What I liked - This had a lot of flavor!  I like dark meat chicken and the braising of the thighs was nice.

What I didn't like - A little too much cumin for my taste.  The lack of any kind of starch with this dish I think was a big problem, if I just ate the chicken and the sauce I don't think I would have liked it as much.

My modifications - I cut the thighs up into bite sized pieces before marinating to accomodate the extra person as there were only 2 thighs, I used all the marinade here and just added it straight to the pan, maybe this was a mistake?  I didn't braise the chicken in the oven, I just put my stove on low and braised it that way.  And obviously added rice to the dish.  I think adding some sour cream or yogurt also would have been nice with this dish but I didn't have any on hand (unless you count my sons strawberry banana yogurt, but that would have just been weird).

Not sure what to give this for a star rating as I did make quite a few modification.  As I made it probably 3.5 stars (yes now I am doing half stars).  Everybody liked this dish, there was even enough sauce left over to have seconds of rice and sauce for my husband and his uncle.
Finished Dish

Marinating the cut up chicken