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First off, I must say: don't be afraid of Hummus! We use it in this early Learn-to-Cook recipe because it makes for a very simple side and is way easier (at least at this stage) than preparing rice or potatoes. If you've never had hummus, this is a great excuse to try it. Hey ... learning to cook is all about trying new things. Now with that out of the way, let me continue.

This dish has amazing flavor for such a simple dish. I invited friends over to join us for dinner after the photo shoot for this recipe, and five of us gobbled up a double recipe! It was that good.

Not only that, it's really easy! As one of our members wrote: "That sure was quick to make, and can even be made when brain dead after work, as I did. Tasted great, and now I have leftovers for when I'm brain dead after work."

I guess it doesn't get much easier than that!

For this recipe, you are going to cut the chicken into chunks. Be sure to read about handling raw poultry and meat in the At-Home Safe Food Handling, a paper we have included on our site with permission from the author.

We use chicken thighs (dark meat) in this recipe because they cook up moist and tender, and you can err on the side of over-cooking without drying them out. So you will have much more success with this recipe if you don't substitute chicken breasts (white meat). If you've ever had chicken breasts that were dry and hard to cut, then you've had over-cooked chicken.

So after you've cut up the chicken, you're going to slice some bell peppers and onions. The best thing you can do for yourself here is to be sure that your knives are sharp! Nothing turns what should be a fairly easy task into a difficult one faster than a dull knife. Check out our article How to Sharpen Knife Skills in the Kitchen for some practical tips. And see the tools links on the left side of this page for info on knife sharpeners.

After you've chopped everything up, you'll mix some olive oil and spices in a large bowl, add the chicken, peppers & onions and toss to coat everything with the oil & spices.

Finally, you'll dump it all into a foil-lined, rimmed baking sheet and then cook it all under the broiler. The foil is to make clean-up easier. You want the baking sheet to be large enough to hold the chicken, peppers and onions in pretty much a single layer. That way, everything browns nicely as it cooks. If you crowd it all into a too-small pan, you'll end up steaming the stuff instead. So instead of nicely browned chicken pieces you'll have soggy, mooshy chicken. That's just the way it works: if the ingredients are crowded in, there's not enough heat around them to sear them, so they exude juices and then the stuff just steams in the liquid. It will still taste ok but it won't look nearly as appetizing as it should and the texture won't be as pleasant.

If you don't have a rimmed baking sheet, you could use a shallow roasting pan instead. Just be sure it's large enough to hold everything in a single layer. If not, cook the stuff in two batches. Or, if your broiler came with a slide-out two-piece rack, use that: line the bottom part of it with foil; you won't use the top grate.

Speaking of broiling: if your broiler is inside or adjacent to your oven (and on most stoves, it is), be sure to leave the oven door slightly ajar when you broil. Otherwise, the oven will heat up to very hot and you'll end up baking instead of broiling. Most oven/broiler combos have a "stop" on the door that lets you leave it slightly open.

If your broiler has multiple levels (meaning you can control how far from the heat the pan is), start with the middle level. If the chicken isn't cooking fast enough, raise it to the top level. If the chicken and peppers are getting too brown before they are cooked through, lower it to the lowest level.

This dish gets a lot of its flavor from the hummus, so do think about buying a spiced version. Plain hummus just won't cut it (unless of course you don't like spices, but then you're going to be missing out on a lot).

Do you remember what to do now?

Since this is only your second recipe, I'll review what was said for your first recipe:

If you haven't taken the Tour yet, do it now, so you know how the site works. It only takes 10 minutes.

For every recipe in this series, you should read the info on the left and right of the screen to learn what tools, new ingredients, and techniques you'll be using. Click on any of the links for more info. Click the recipe name (at the top of this screen) to open up the actual recipe where you'll find even more information, links for every single ingredient and technique, and a button that will take you to the step-by-step illustrated instructions.

At-Home Safe Food Handling *

* with permission from Kansas State University Research & Extension