Dr. Gourmet's Food Reviews

Ethnic Gourmet : Chicken Tandoori

I love Indian food, and cooked the traditional way it is very healthy. In the West it's often hard to find Indian restaurants that don't use a lot of extra fats and oils that make the food a greasy mess. I've been lucky to find one near my home, because I will confess that I don't cook Indian food often. I read a lot about the cuisine and I'm not sure why I don't take the time to make it more often.

There's a lot of pre-prepared Indian food in the groceries today. I think that some of this is the influence of the United Kingdom, where Indian food is the most popular of all meals now. I haven't tried any of the frozen products until now, so I thought that this would be a good choice for today's review. I chose the Ethnic Gourmet brand because I have found it to be more widely available.

As usual, I was prepared to not like these simply because they're frozen food, but this is actually pretty good. Not great, mind you, but one that would do well to keep on hand in your freezer. I have found that if you cook frozen entrees according to the instructions and then put them on a plate or in a bowl they seem to taste better. I realize that they probably don't, but it does feel more like you're eating real food.

Palak Paneer is a vegetarian slow cooked spinach with a white cheese that is amazingly popular in England. Every curry house there has this on the menu. The Ethnic Gourmet has a good spinach flavor without being bitter and the spices are subtle. The cheese doesn't get overcooked in the microwave and the combination works well.

Chicken Tandoori is the quintessence of Indian food. The Ethnic Gourmet brand has a good generic tandoori spiced flavor to it. Somehow the chicken doesn't come out rubbery, which I was surprised at since it has already been cut up into small chunks. Mixed with the spinach and rice, this one works well.

All in all, pretty good products. The rice is OK. In both cases it is brown rice with peas that are lightly seasoned. The rice is a little overcooked, but still better than most white rice that you'll find in frozen entrees. As with most all frozen entrees you will purchase, these guys have a lot of salt in them. Both come in at the 800 mg range.

So many of frozen meals have a chemical aftertaste, but these don't have that same plastic feeling. Not great Indian food but pretty good Indian food. www.ethnicgourmet.com