Kent's Kitchen: Spicy Korma Kit

This spicy Korma kit from Kent's Kitchen is award winning for a reason. I have never tasted such a flavoursome home-made curry before.

Spicy Korma Kit, Chicken, Veggies, Coconut Milk

The beauty of the kit is that you get a flavoured oil to cook your chicken and/or Vegetables, a curry paste to cook through then a spice pot to add at the end. Just provide the Chicken and Veg and a tin of coconut milk.

Method: Chop up your chicken and/or vegetables. Add the Garlic Oil to a hot pan and first seal your chicken (if using)

Add the vegetables and cook for a few minutes.

Add the Korma paste and cook for 5 more minutes.

Finally add the coconut milk and spice pot and simmer until your rice or other accompanying dish is ready.

Tip: In the winter you will find you coconut milk may solidify, just pop the tin in some warm water before opening. I added mine to the washing up bowl!






Result:

 A very tasty, fresh curry. I will definately be trying the other kits in the range.


Recipe Score:



Also a great price at £2.30

Bacon Wrapped Pork Loin With Peppercorn Sauce

Following the Pork theme of my last recipe HelloFresh seem to be quite generous with the pork!

For this recipe and the Spiced Pork Skewers I only needed 300g of pork fillet but was sent at least 600g so  an looking forward to making them both again.

300g Pork Fillet, 450g potatoes, 4 Rashers Streaky Bacon, 100ml Milk, 1 Clove of Garlic, 3 Tbsp Double Cream, 1 Beef Oxo cube, 3 Tbsp diced Shallot, 150g Broccoli, 1/2Tbsp Black Peppercorns

As usual chop everything up; Peel and finely dice the garlic and shallot, peel the potatoes and chop into just smaller than golf ball size pieces.

Boil two pans of water, with a pinch of salt in each, and add you potatoes to one of them. Let them boil for 10-15 minutes until soft throughout and drain.

lay the bacon out, overlapping the edges to make a sheet to wrap your pork loin in. place the loin on end and roll carefully into a giant pig in blanket.

Heat a pan with a tablespoon of oil then seal your pork roll and let brown a little on all sides.

Slice the roll into discs about 2cm thick then pop them back in the hot pan and fry for 90 seconds on each side. Let rest on a warm plate.

fry the shallots and garlic in the pan containing your pork juices then add half the stock cube and 200mls of water. Allow to simmer until reduced by half then crush the pepper corns and add these plus the cream to the pan. Leave bubbling until thick.

Now cook your broccoli for 3 minutes in the second pan of boiling water and mash your potatoes with the milk, a nob of butter and a little salt to taste.

Serve the pork on top of the mashed potatoes with a good splash of sauce and broccoli on the side.

Result:

A little bit fiddly rolling up the pork and bacon but worth it in the end.

An impressive dish with lots of flavours.

Recipe score:

Spiced Pork Skewers with Carmelised Onion Rice

Another lovely recipe from HelloFresh! last night.

After taking a bit of a break from proper cooking over Christmas I decided to give the healthy January boxes a go.

300g Pork Fillet, 200g Basmati Rice, 1 Red Pepper, 1 Clove of Garlic, 80g of Onion, A pinch of Smoked Paprika, 1tsp Curry Powder, 1 Lime, 300g Broccoli

First put the skewers in some water to soak, this stops them burning when the skewers go in the oven.

Chop up all your vegetables remembering that the garlic and onion need to be finely diced to go in the rice and the red pepper should be large chunks to go on the skewers. Chop a little off the top of one of your broccoli florets so that you have a teaspoon on tiny buds to garnish.

Chop your pork into bite sized chunks, again remember that they are going to be threaded onto skewers.

Heat a pan with a tablespoon of oil then add the garlic and onion, stir and allow to cook for 5 minutes.

Next add a generous pinch of paprika, a pinch of salt and a few grinds of black pepper. Add the rice and stir for a minute than add 300mls of cold water.

Once the pan starts to boil turn the heat down and pop on the lid. Turn your grill on to high and put a pan of water on to boil for your broccoli.

Meanwhile mix up a marinade of one tablespoon of olive oil, the curry powder, zest of half the lime and juice of half the lime. mix well and add a couple of pinches of slat and pepper then coat your pork and peppers. If you have time you could make the marinade the night before and leave the meat and pepper sot soak up the flavour in the fridge.

Thread your meat and peppers alternately on the skewers and pop onto a baking tray and put on to the top shelf under the grill. Cook for 10-12 minutes making sure to turn every 3 minutes. Be careful as the skewers will heat up very quickly!

Lastly put the broccoli into the pan of boiling water and cook for 4 minutes and drain. check your rice and turn off the heat if all the water has been absorbed.


Serve the skewers on top of the rice with your broccoli bud garnish sprinkled on top and the florets on the side.

Result: 

Lovely tender Pork with plenty of flavour and the rice was good enough to be eaten on its own!

All that at under 500 calories.

Recipe Score:

Tesco Light Choices Ready Meals

Forgive me for I have sinned!

As well as failing to post for a month I have come to confess that this week I have been eating ready meals instead of home cooking. In a bid to beat the post-Christmas bulge we have been eating Tesco Light Choices Ready meals which do claim to be healthy.

Looking back at my meals for the last week I can see that the calorie content is indeed low and I have been making sure to eat breakfast but as expected the salt and fat content can still be quite high considering the portion size.

 Chicken and Bacon Pasta bake

Tonight's meal is a pasta bake, looks smells and tastes yummy so full marks there.

Is it really a healthy meal? I like to look at daily allowances here rather than grams and in theory I believe that a meals which uses 23% of your daily calorie allowance should ideally be similar for fats and salts etc. this meals actually only accounts for 15% of your allowance of fat but as most of it seems to be saturates (34% of allowance) may not be as good as you think at first glance. It also contains 2.2g of Salt which is 37% of your daily allowance.

Chicken Tikka Masala and Rice
Last week I also had a Chicken Tikka and Rice and I have to say I was very impressed with the nutritional values. At 459 Calories with 11% of your daily allowance of  Fat (only 13% GDA for saturates) and 1.4g of Salt this has to be one of the healthier meals available.

Very impressive for a curry and it also tasted like a nice curry and wasn't swimming in oil!

Chicken Breasts with Tomato and Basil sauce

The healthiest meal we had all week has to be the chicken breasts in tomato and basil sauce. At 150 calories per breast and less than 5% of your GDA for fat & saturates this lived up to its light choices branding.

The pack itself isn't a full meal like the others but is definitely the main event. I served these with half a baked potato and salad.




Still to try is the Chicken and Broccoli Pie, 33% GDA of salt but otherwise good, and the Braised Beef with Mash, again the salt GDA was above the the calorie GDA but good on the fats. So far All of the meals have been tasty and I understand that removing salt can result in a quite flavourless meal.


So "Yes" you will lose weight eating light choices meals when paired with healthy breakfasts and a good lunch, just be aware of salt and saturated fats!

Undercover Ratatouille with Lemon Roasted Sea Bream

This is by far one of the easiest from scratch recipes I have ever made but also very tasty and fresh. Quite an achievement since I have always ended up with the Courgette and Aubergine (Egg plant for any Yanks) in my veg box going to waste as I've not been keen on them before.

 2 Fillets of Fish (Bream), 1 Lemon, 1 Aubergine, 200g Courgettes, 2 Peppers (we used 1 red and 1 Yellow), 1 Tin chopped Tomatoes, 2 Cloves Garlic, 1 Tsp Sugar, 1 Tsp Provencal Herbs (mixed herbs would also work)

As we have learnt by now, first I heated the oven to 250 degrees C then chopped up all the veggies. The peppers were de-seeded and sliced, the courgette was chopped into cubes and the for aubergine I removed the top and bottom, sliced into quarters and removed half of the spongy middle before chopping into cubes. If you really like your peppers you could slice it into bitter strips than I did.

These were all popped onto a baking tray and tossed in a little oil with a pinch of salt and pepper before being put on the top shelf of the oven for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile I finely chopped the garlic and fried it in a large pan with a little olive oil for a minute before adding the tin of chopped tomatoes. I then added the herbs, sugar and a pinch of salt and let it bubble until I had a thick sauce.

I placed a tray with a tablespoon of oil into the oven to heat up then rubbed some oil on my fish again seasoning with a little salt and pepper then placing on the heated tray. Finally squeeze the juice from 1/4 of a lemon on top and place in the middle of the oven for 5 minutes.

The veggies should be about ready by now, gently roasted and a bit crispy around the edges. Remove from the oven and add to the tomato sauce, taste and season as needed.

Serve the fish on top of the ratatouille and zest a little bit of lemon on top.

Result:

Both the fish and the ratatouille would work really well with other dishes or together. I couldn't believe how nice and simple this was and still so tasty. The fish was perfectly cooked and very moist and the vegetables all tasted very nice amazingly as both myself and the other half didnt think we really liked courgette or aubergine.

Recipe Score:

Decadent Wild Mushrooms and Truffle Macaroni

This was a very luxurious twist on a normal macaroni cheese and also suitable for vegetarians (depending on cheese). I usually make a spring version of macaroni with bacon, leeks and peas.

The HelloFresh! recipe card layout has changed slightly since I last had a box, I'm not sure if it is better or about the same!

250g Macaroni, 100g Wild Mushrooms, 25g Butter, 250ml Milk, 25g Plain Flour, 80g Cheddar Cheese, 1/2 Tsp Mustard, 1/4 Tsp Truffle oil, 30g Breadcrumbs 150g Broccoli

First I grated the cheese and put 2 pans of water on to boil. I added the pasta to one of the boiling pans with a pinch of salt and rubbed any dirt off of the wild mushrooms, don't wash as this will affect the flavour.

I pulled my mushrooms apart into managable chunks as some were quite big or joined and then fried in a little olive oil until softened.

In a large pan I melted the butter and added the flour, once the flour had slighly cooked through I added a dash of milk, stirring well and slowly adding the milk till you have a thinner paste, stir until all the lumps are gone and add the rest of the milk. This is a roux and is a great white sauce base for many recipes. Finally add 2/3 of your cheese the mustard and truffle oil and cook on a low heat until the sauce coats a wooded spoon easily.

I then added my pasta and mushrooms to the sauce and put the broccoli in  the remaining pan of boiling water. Heating the grill to high I transferred my pasta and sauce into an oven dish, topped with breadcrumbs and the remaining cheese and grilled until brown.

Serve with the broccoli!

Result:

This wash such a lovely rich version of macaroni cheese that I will definitely be looking for where to get wild mushrooms in the future. My other half didnt even notice that there was no meat tonight!

Recipe score:

Pad's Thai with Tiger Prawns and Tamarind

Another lovely tiger prawn HelloFresh! Recipe, next week I will be reviewing Gousto to see how the services compare.

I didn't know what tamarind was until I picked up this recipe (for those who still do not know it's a fruit used in Worcestershire and HP sauce) but it fit perfectly into my aim of trying new food and ingredients.

150g Tiger Prawns, 2 Nests of Noodles, I Tbsp Tamarind Sauce, 1 Tsp Muscavado Sugar, 1 Tbsp Soya Sauce, 1 stock cube, 1 Tbsp Peanuts, 1 Tsp Red chilli, 1 Cup of Beansprouts, 1 Cup Coriander, Half a Tbsp Ginger, 2 Cloves Garlic,           3 Spring Onions, 1 Lime

As with the Other HelloFresh! Recipes we start by chopping up all the ingredients (garlic, chilli, ginger, spring onions), make sure to separate the white part of the spring onion from the green, and crush your peanuts.

Mix together your Tamarind Sauce, Soya sauce and the Muscavado sugar in a bowl and put to one side.

Dissolve your stock cube in a pan of boiling water, add the noodles and cook until al dente, drain and keep a couple of tablespoons of the water.
(or you could just leave a little in the bottom of the pan when draining, that's what I did!)

Heat up a tablspoon of oil in a pan and cook the ginger chilli and garlic of 30 seconds before adding the white spring onions and prawns. Cook until the prawns turn pink then add the noodles and stir in your sauce (add the extra liquid from the noodles now if you set it to one side rather than being lazy like me). give it a good toss for a few minutes.

Finally take off the heat and add the bean-sprouts and squeeze half of the juice of a lime over the top.

Serve in heated bowls with the coriander, green spring onion and peanuts sprinkled on top.

Result:

 

The prawns and noodles were lovely but there were a few too many flavours for me. The combination of chilli, garlic, spring onions, lime and coriander left a confusing taste. The crunch of the peanuts was great but I would probably leave out the lime and coriander next time.

 

Recipe Score:

 A lovely fresh dish but too many flavours happening at once!

 

Welcome to Food Fad Reviews

Order Eat Review!

We buy everything on-line now; books, clothing, cinema tickets and food. Some people are still nervous about buying food that they haven't seen or tasted let alone having it sent in a cardboard box by courier and left in their garage.

I've been trying new ​food delivery services and offers for several years now and thought it was time to share my experiences.

I will be looking at farm shop delivery services, tasting clubs, new products, snacks to your door and everything in between. Everything from hampers to slices of cake.

For each review I will tell you about:

• How easy it was to place my order​

• Delivery and packaging

• What's in the Box!​

• The food itself​

• Star ratings ​(Packaging, Taste, Value​, Overall rating)

​If I can order it on-line and have it delivered to my door I want to try it!
So if you stumble across something I haven't reviewed yet let me know.