(upbeat music)
- Hi, I'm Preeti Mistry.
I'm a chef, author, and activist.
And today I'm going to be taste testing
some grocery store, instant Indian meals.
The thing I love the most
about Indian food is the pow of the different spices.
Like, I'm a Libra,
and so balance is really important to me.
When I'm making a masala
I'm thinking about the sweet, salty,
spicy,
tangy,
et cetera.
There is a fine balance when it all works, that just evens
out all of those different sort of powerful flavors
Nice and chunky.
For how tangy it,
the aroma is,
I'm expecting more sort of acid,
but it's actually just
kind of creamy and spicy for like, you know, middle
of the road, Indian restaurant.
I don't think you would get anything that much better
than this.
I feel like, you know, I would want to add a little
more salt and lemon juice, maybe some fresh cilantro.
I think out of five stars, I would give this dahl probably
three and a quarter three and a half.
I feel like this is something I could add a little bit
more spice to and a little more salt and lemon juice,
and I would be perfectly happy with it, quite honestly.
It looks
like a chicken curry I would get like in an airplane.
Let's go rice and sauce first, just to kind of get a.
Rice is very sticky, a little mushy kind of textureless.
The only spice I really get is black pepper.
The texture of the chicken is very, it's not tough.
It's a little stringy.
I don't really get any Indian flavor at all.
It's just kind of tastes like
braised chicken in tomato sauce.
I would give this half a star.
Texturally, it's challenged,
boiled chicken, sticky,
kind of mushy rice.
It definitely needs salt and acid
but it also needs just some sort
of nuanced spice to think like, if I close my eyes
and somebody gave this to me and told me it was
like some Italian chicken, I'd be like, okay.
Full disclosure, I have met Sukhi and her whole family.
They're very nice people.
I am excited to try this
because I love samosas, who doesn't love samosas?
Look at that.
It's crispy.
Ooh. Look at brown.
Let's see here.
The pastry is quite good.
The interior so far, I get more nuanced spice
but it still feels like it's lacking in salt
but let's maybe try dipping it
in the chutney and see if that helps with the salt.
I feel like someone who
is spice averse would probably love this.
I would give the chicken tikka masala samosas
two and a quarter stars.
I'm really wanting more salt and spice, but texture's great.
The pastry is fantastic.
I feel like I want more,
pow.
All right. Hmm. It actually smells quite good.
This is also Sukhi's
but this is chicken tikka masala with naan bread,
it's called on the box, which is redundant.
But I understand trying to meet your customer
where they're at.
Let's see, I don't want to burn my tongue.
The flavor, you get a lot of clove, cinnamon.
Definitely the fenugreek, ginger.
I would say the biggest issue I have right now is just
that it really needs more salt.
Let's try some rice.
Now, the rice also, I'll give you a look at that.
It looks a lot more like separate grains
as opposed to the Signature Select that sorta look
like kind of mushy sticky.
Texturally, so far,
I feel like this is the best thing we've had.
Let's try the naan, again, it's got
some nice browning on the back there you can see.
I love naan.
Now bread in a microwave is going to be chewy.
So there's nothing crispy about this.
Like a regular naan that you get out of a tandoor.
It'd be like crisp on the edges and soft.
This is a little bit more like soft and chewy.
Just gotta get the.
Chewy.
If I got this naan in here,
I would just throw it in the toaster.
I think I would give this one
because of the lack of salt and spice
I'm going to go three and a half.
The variety of starches, the bread and the rice.
I think it was a bonus.
If you were to toast the naan
I think you'd get probably the best sort of, you know
grocery store naan experience.
And the curry just needs to be boosted a little bit.
I think if you are buying these meals and you like them
and you want to go a little bit deeper in your enjoyment
or appreciation or understanding of Indian cuisine
I would definitely say go to your local Indian restaurant.
Because even if it's mediocre
it's probably going to be 10 times better than anything
I just tasted.
(upbeat music)