Recipe - Syn Free Chinese Chicken Curry

There has been a bit of a hoo-haa in the Slimming Community lately. Iceland stock a range of Slimming World meals, meats, sauces and soups and they released a new, chip-shop curry style sauce. Queue people loading their trolleys with tubs and tubs of the stuff, and emptying the freezers literally the minute the stores opened. I wouldn't even be surprised if there was fisticuffs. Us slimmers are a greedy bunch. Anyway, most normal people (I.e. those not willing to loose a tooth in a fight for it) couldn't get any for love nor money, but Slimming World, either being naive or extremely clever, print the recipes for the meals on the boxes with the idea being you buy it once and then make it yourself the next time. So, I got hold of a pic of the recipe from a lovely lady in my group and had a go at making it myself. I adjusted the recipe slightly, added chicken and peas, and while it was runnier than I would have liked, it was good! This recipe easily serves two greedy adults, and let's face it, if we weren't greedy we wouldn't be here, would we...

To make Syn Free Chinese Chicken Curry for two people you will need:

• one large onion or two small ones
• 2 large cloves of garlic
• 2 or 3 chicken breasts
• 1/2 cup peas
• 1 tsp cumin
• 2 tsp medium curry powder
• 1/4 tsp chinese five spice
• 2 tbsp dark soy sauce
• salt and pepper
• 250ml water
• 3 tbsp fat free natural Greek yogurt

Dice the chicken and brown in a pan. Roughly chop half the onion and blend in a food processor with the garlic and a couple of tablespoons of water until you get a smooth paste. Chop the other half of the onion and add to the chicken with the peas and onion paste. Cook for a few minutes then add the spices. Stir it all together and chuck in the soy, seasoning and water, bring to the boil and then reduce to a simmer for about 15 minutes. Take off the heat for a few minutes before stirring in the yogurt and serve straight away.

I served mine with half rice and half cauliflower rice to get my speed in, and it was really tasty. I'm going to make it again, and try to get it thicker next time so I will update this post if I manage it. But it was tasty as it was, and mixed with the rice and cauliflower the sauce was absorbed. The original recipe suggest sweetener, but I left that out as we're now supposed to syn it, and it really didn't need it at all. You could SP it up by substituting yogurt for quark, and serving with just the cauli rice.

Any ideas for thickening it up? I'm not keen on adding smash as I don't feel like it does anything for the flavour. I could always syn a bit of cornflour I suppose!

Hx

Recipe- Sticky Chicken

If you like your chicken sticky, you've come to the right place! This is a family favourite (although not for the baby, as it contains honey and babies under one can't have it) and it's worth a few syns for the honey - sometimes carcinogens aspartame just wont do. It's quick, easy and goes with pretty much anything - rice, chips, couscous, potatoes. You can add veg in to make it more like a stir fry or get your speed on the side. I served it here with green beans, cauliflower and a boob of rice (just put some rice in a wee ramekin and turned it out onto the plate, I'm fancy like that. And it helps with portion control). The recipe serves four and comes in at 2 syns per serving. It's good cold on salad too. Sold it enough? Better give you the recipe then...

To make Sticky Chicken for four you will need:

• 4 chicken breasts (one per person),
• 3 tablespoons of honey (1 tbsp is 2 1/2 syns, so 7 1/2 syns for the whole recipe. I rounded up to 2 syns a portion because I don't want you crying to me when you go over your syns and getting your jeans on turns into 30 minutes of cardio)
• 3 tablespoons of soy sauce
• 3 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
• 1/2 tsp of garlic powder

Chop your chook into cubes and fling them with joyful abandon into a receptacle. Put everything else in and give them a stir, then leave to marinade in the fridge for at least half an hour. Chuck the chicken and marinade into a hot pan sprayed with frylight and cook until the chicken is done and the marinade has reduced right down and it's sticky - 10ish minutes. Serve with whatever you fancy, you indulgent bugger you.

You can even thread the chicken onto skewers and barbecue them, basting with any remaining marinade as you go, if that's your thing. Winner winner chicken dinner, as my 6 year old would say.

Hx