Recipe - Syn Free Chicken Supreme

Quark is a funny old thing, really. It's cheese, but not really cheesy. It's spreadable, but you wouldn't really want to spread it on your ryvita like you would with philly. It's not very tasty, to be honest, unless you tart it up wit a bit of garlic or some chilli like I have here. If you don't like it, or can't find it in the shops (most supermarkets now do their own version, even Aldi and Lidl have jumped on the Quark bandwagon) then when it's used to make a sauce like I have here it's perfectly interchangable with fromage frais or natural yogurt, just add it at the end so it doesn't split. If you want to stuff a chicken breast, or mix in some chocolate powder and pretend it's a mousse, only Quark will do. And you can eat it to your hearts content on an SP day, if that's the way you swing. Technically the mustard in this recipe is 1 syn, but since it's split between 4 it's negligible. If you want to be holier-than-thou, use mustard powder instead, which is free.

To make Syn Free Chicken Supreme for 4 people you will need:

• 2 large or 4 small chicken breasts, cubed
• 1 onion, sliced
• tsp garlic powder
• 4 lean bacon medallions, chopped
• 300g mushrooms, halved
• 100g Quark
• 100ml chicken stock (I used half a cube)
• 1 tsp wholegrain mustard
• 1 tsp dried parsley
• salt and pepper
• frylight

In a large frylighted pan, soften your sliced onion with the garlic powder for about 5 minutes, before adding the chicken and bacon. Once the chicken is sealed, add the mushrooms and cook for 5 minutes more. In a bowl, mix the quark, stock, mustard, parsley and salt and pepper and whisk with a fork to combine (if using fromage frais or yogurt, leave this out and mix in at the end). Add the sauce mixture and simmer for about 10 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through. Serve with rice (or cauli rice for sadists SP followers) and speed veg of your choice.

I'm not a great lover of creamy sauces, I prefer tomato but, you guessed it, Mr MGAMT disagrees. But the mustard in this adds just enough of an edge for me. And of course, quark is a lot lighter than cream. If you use yogurt or fromage frais and it splits, don't worry, it will look like vomit but it's perfectly edible if you shut your eyes. If you want to make this veggie, I see no reason why quorn wouldn't work, just skip the sealing part and throw the sauce in with the quorn and leave out the bacon. Quark and quorn. Quackers.

Hx