Review: “Authentic Indian Cuisine” prepared vegetarian meals (sous-vide)

We tested several “Indian” curry-style vegetarian dishes available at our standard grocery store.

Photo by Blair Wright, http://blairwrightstudios.com

The protein dishes were “sous-vide” style, packaged in vacuum sealed soft foil-y material to preserve the foods and allow them to sit at room temperature on the store shelves. We also tested a couscous product that is ready in about 7 minutes (2 minutes to heat the water, 5 minutes to sit off-heat and let the grain absorb the water).

These were surprisingly good, considering they came in a box, although some were better than others.

There are two different sous-vide pre-packaged brands, Tasty Bite and Kitchens of India. Kitchens of India also gave us a very interesting music CD with some Indian music on it, but it will probably not be making it into iTunes…

I can’t say one brand is better than the other – my two favorites consisted of one from each brand.

The prepared Fabulous Flats Tandoori Naan bread product (from the bakery aisle) was also tested, and subsequently adored.

These were surprisingly good, considering they came in a box, although some were better than others…

Products tested:

Near East Couscous (Original Plain)
Tasty Bite Kashmir Spinach(“Curried spinach sauteed with paneer cheese”)
Tasty Bite Bombay Potatoes(“Potatoes, chick peas, and spices slow cooked in a tomato sauce”)
Kitchens of India Red Kidney Beans Curry(“Red kidney beans simmered in a delicately spiced gravy of tomatoes and onions”)
Kitchens of India Chick Peas Curry(“Chick peas simmered in an aromatic tomato gravy”)
Fabulous Flats Tandoori Naan

This meal couldn’t have been easier. The beans, chickpeas, and potatoes cook in their own bag that you can either microwave or immerse in boiling water. You can empty the contents into a pan too, which would probably be good, but definitely isn’t as easy. 5 minutes and you’re good to go. This entire meal can be made start to finish in about 20 minutes including water boiling and oven heating.

Interior Packaging

My preferred cooking method for the meals

The couscous is also an incredibly easy preparation. You add water to a pan along with olive oil or butter and bring to a boil. You add the couscous, cover, and remove from heat. You let it sit for about 5 minutes (or more – ours sat for about 20 while everything else cooked and we took these pictures). Then you fluff it with a fork or wooden spoon and serve.

The naan bread is so good. I’ve had it before, and they make a garlic variety, which is divine. It doesn’t take long in the oven (3-5 minutes), and the result is a chewy, warm slightly crispy yet tender bread that I could eat all by itself at every meal. I spread a pat of butter on the bread after it was warm to keep it from being too dry and give it an extra buttery kick. Good idea? Or great idea? Indeed.

The couscous was buttery and tender. When I first tasted it, it was still hot, so I blew on the spoon. The couscous was so light and airy it literally floated away from a light breeze.

My only complaint was that it got a little clumpy, which seems to happen with this stuff. Adding a little more oil would probably keep that from happening.

The bombay potatoes are one of my favorite of these nearly-instant meals. The potatoes and chickpeas are soft but still have texture. The sauce is a slightly spicy tomato-based sauce with lots of cumin and coriander. I would definitely recommend this dish.

The kidney bean dish is also delicious. It’s not as spicy as the others, and has a hearty almost meaty taste. The beans are firm and savory with less heat in the curry than the others, as I said, but the thick tomato sauce is very enjoyable. Definitely the most mild, but also the most flavor from the ingredients rather than the curry. Very rich and satisfying. This one would be good by itself or with other meals/types of food. Very visually appealing, as well.

I will admit that I’m not a big spinach fan, especially when it’s cooked, so Blair reviewed that one. He said it was a “spinach lover’s dream”. He said the flavor was good, but the overall consistency was not. He said it was like “eating out of a baby’s diaper”, so how’s that for a rave review? He said it needed salt, and that it helped a lot to wake up the flavors. This was also the least appealing in terms of visual appearance. Our collected opinion was that this was not as good as the others being tested.

The chickpeas curry was good, but the chickpeas were very firm and I prefer them softer like in the potato dish. This one had a much spicier sauce that was bold and a little tangy. We buy this one regularly, so we like it, but if the chick peas were more tender I would like it more. Blair disagrees with my opinion of this one, as this is one of his favorites.

[Sorry, no picture!]

Conclusion

Overall, I would say that the Bombay Potatoes and the Kidney Beans were the best out of the four protein dishes.

The naan is awesome, both the garlic which we tested earlier and the regular that we tested this time around.  A+ highly recommend.

The couscous is good, easy to prepare, and its lack of additional flavor ingredients (It comes in other varieties such as Mushroom) was not missed since the protein sauces had such strong flavor.

One thing to note about the 4 protein dinners was that they tend to have a lot of oil in them and usually more sauce than main ingredient. When you pour out the food from the packaging it was boiled in, the sauce overwhelms the plate and you can see the oil collect at the top of the liquid and around the edges.

Little tip:  For this review, I poured everything out of the bag. However, normally when we eat these, I use a spoon to pull out the solid ingredients and then spoon a bit of sauce onto the plate over the solid protein. There is usually way too much sauce and it either ends up in a bowl for dipping or tossed in the bin, unfortunately.

I would rather have more protein and less sauce, but this would probably not be an issue if it was cooked in a pan on the stovetop, since some of the liquid would cook off. Perhaps I will try that next time. The boil-in-the-bag prep is so easy though! No dirty pans! No dirty spoons! No splatter! What’s a girl to do.

(ALL PHOTOS © 2010 by BLAIR WRIGHT – blairwrightstudios.com)

April W

April has been a vegetarian her entire life and is an avid home cook. She resides in Maryland with her omnivore husband, four happy dogs, and an african grey parrot. She enjoys spending her non-cooking free time as photographer and business manager for Baltimore Maryland’s Premier Wedding and Portrait Photographers at Blair Wright Studios Photography

 

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