Well, I take it you goes might give me credit for knowing a little bit about Indian food? Well I can tell you I have discovered the ONLY supermarket ready meal that tastes anything like the real thing, with a decent blend of spices etc. Its actually better than most takeaways, and that's no lie.

Its the Budgens(!) Chicken tikka jalfrezi. The madras is quite good, but the jalfrezi is really good. I take it to work as my lunch once a week (only so much of the bland canteen food I can eat). I'm quite fussy when it comes to indian food as I know what it should taste like as its cooked fresh in my house regularly, but the Budgens CTJ is really good. It is hot though, so if you are a limp wristed korma sort of guy its not for you!

 

Deep, I find this very hard to believe, if I can find a Budgens near me I'll give it a go, if it's crap you can refund me via Paypal.


I've got a stinking cold, dodgy chest, wife's out tonight, I've got Forza 3 and my local curry house is bringing me a fabulously fiery Vindaloo with extra chopped green chilli and the juice of 3 lemons, the best cure for the common cold in my unprofessional opinion.

 

Mate, I promise you compared to any other ready meal curry its the best. I find all the others inedible, ie tesco, sainsburys, m and s etc. I was quite sceptical when someone first suggested it to me, because as I said I can't usually stomach the usual ready made stuff.

I'd rather you tried it when you didn't have a cold so you can actually taste it!

 

I'd love to spend a day eating authentic Indian food
If you don't mind, summarise for me what you eat in a typical day


Cheers,
Shaun

 

it's a right headfull cooking a proper curry, the basic sauce takes a good hour and half of faffing, then the meat has to be cooked, then the specific curry ingredients are mixed and combined with the basic sauce. prob takes me about 3 hrs total, but is definately worth it.

 

I'm not suggesting that cooking a good curry is easy, I can't cook fullstop, but surely a proper Indian/Chinese food consultant chef type person could give them a few pointers?

I'm frothing at the mouth just thinking about tonights curry, how bad is that.

 

Think I might go out for an "English"...give me the blandest thing on your menu!!!

 

I want three white rolls.

 

Urban, I will have a think about your question and post tomorrow. I don't eat Indian food everyday so will give an average weeks menu.

 

Any luck compiling a menu Deep

 

Never tried the Budgens Jalfrazi, however after a recent case of 'the gas hob failing' at home I have worked my way through the Morrisons range of ready currys and found their Jalfrazi is excellent as well, to the point where if you cook it in the oven and keep stirring the rice to stop the to layer going crisp, then it really does taste almost like a 'proper one'.

I think curries such as madras or whatever generally have so much oil in them that the ready-meal ones will never taste as good, as they'd never have that much oil in them without having to put a heath warning on the box!

 

Well it's Tuesday and my curry buds are tingling already, don't know if I can hang on till the weekend.

 

Hi Urban, sorry about that.

Ok last weekend we were entertaining so a bit of a feast we had.

1) Tandoori chicken

2) Somasa. Two different kinds, the traditional potato and pea kind, and ones that have spicy paneer (kind of cheese)

3) Minced lamb sheekh kebab. Sort of like the thing you get in a doner kebab shop, but lots of spices mixed into the meat.

With a few other things, that was starters. Washed down with beer and shots!

Main was

1) Sag chicken. As it sounds really, sag is a spinach dish, often had on its own, but you can add cooked chicken or lamb to it. Sag takes a long time to cook, ie hours in a pressure cooker.

2) Chana masala. As you probably know that's spicy chick peas.

3) A straight forward lamb curry

4) Paneer curry

Had with a combination of roti, naan, rice, salads etc.

Some of this was made by us (read wife), some was brought by my guests, and some we got from a takeaway. No way could my wife cook all that without taking a few days off work!

Now that's quite heavy, we don't eat like that in the week. If we are going to have indian food in the week it would be a straight forward dish like 'daal' ie lentils, sounds boring but once its got some heat and aromatic spices in it, it hits the spot and is healthy. Or something like a 'aloo gobi' ie potato and cauliflower curry.

On a Friday night as a treat, wife can do a mean chicken biryiani, which I can just eat by itself after I've had my dose of Stella Artois!

Hope that helps, difficult to give an average menu because it depends on how naughty we feel, how much time we've had to cook, or if my mum pops over and pulls something out the hat.

Btw, don't ask me how to cook any of this stuff! I did find 'Rhodes across India' very good, going through the different regions, and Floyd (RIP) in India seemed very authentic as well

 

Deep, your killing me...

Now I'm really hungry!

 

Thanks Deep - Good insight.

Getting stuff from a takeaway is cheating though

Cheers,
Shaun