CREAMY CHICKEN WITH SPINACH & DOLCELATTE

During Pascal & my super indulgent weekend, we spent a night with our lovely friends Karl & Lezah in West Sussex. We love seeing them although it's terrible for the waist line as Lezah is such a good host you are constantly being served more food & more alcohol & she won't let you do a thing to help! 

We arrived at 4.30 and had supper reservations at 8pm - so while we had a few drinks and caught up, instead of a couple of crisps & dips, we had a full on meal. I felt like I was at a Roman banquet. No wonder my second chin is back this week!! 

Anyway it would be rude to say no (plus we are greedy piggies) so we ate & drunk non stop, however we still didn't get through the mountain of food, so Lezah generously packed us off with a bag bulging with every cheese under the sun, saucissons, salamis, bagels etc - all the food we love but is so not good for us.

To prevent Arabella, Pascal & I gobbling it down in one sitting I set about finding some cheesy recipes to cook - all three if us are in heaven this week!!

Pascal always complains he doesn't like sauce so I didn't tell him exactly what we were cooking to prevent arguments. This is a recipe I have cooked several times for Arabella and I and it is delicious.

Ingredients for 6 people:

1kg pack of chicken thigh fillets

3 tbsp olive oil 

2-3 cloves if garlic (like with cheese I ways think the more the merrier)

A bunch of salad onions - thinly sliced on the diagonal 

200ml tub of half fat Creme Fraiche 

170g pack Galbani Dolcelatte Classico - cut into small pieces (er I used double this obviously)!!!

500g spinach
A sprinkling of fresh / dried nutmeg

You could add pasta or rice to this recipe however I have it just as it is or I add peas.

Firstly cut each thigh fillet in to quarters and cut off the fat & yucky bits (I hate this on the thighs but they taste so good & tender it's worth the effort).

Hear the oil in a large frying pan and then add half the chicken and half the garlic. Fry for about 5 minutes until pale golden. Drain & then repeat for the remainder. If you have a super sized pan you could cook it all at once.

Return all the chicken to the pan with the white parts of the salad onions (save the green for later) and season generously. Fry gently for another five minutes until the chicken is cooked through.

Next stir in the Creme Fraiche and scatter over the cheese. As I mentioned earlier I used double the amount of cheese but it depends how much of a cheese addict you are - we all thought it needed more than the recipe actually says! 

Add the spinach a handful at a time together with the green onion tops and stir. Allow the spinach to wilt and the sauce to warm through, developing a creamy consistency.

Finally sprinkle with some freshly grated nutmeg (I used dry as I didn't want to buy fresh) and serve immediately on it's own or with some pasta, peas or rice.

This recipe went down a treat! All of us finished our plates and if we'd had leftovers I think we would have finished that too! Pascal "Mr I don't like sauce" was eating his with a spoon like with soup by the end and has asked that we do this again very very soon!