Patak's Tastes of India Chicken Korma with Rice: Product Review

When my husband goes shopping, he tends to bring home food I would not normally think of buying. Well, he did it again. This time he brought home a pre-prepared individual serving sized meal from Patak's Tastes of India's food line from a discount food store. He brought home Chicken Korma with Rice (mild). In case you are not familiar with Chicken Korma, it is a rich flavorful Indian creamy coconut chicken curry.

I don't normally follow food trends but recently I found an article at FoodProceesing.com that stated Indian food will be the next big food trend. Having this box in my house I decided to read the article. I discovered the maker, Patak (a Canadian firm), is exporting its product to India. It is flying off shelves there as workers there like here, don't have time to make their own cooking.

This is how the Patak's website describes its heat and serve meals: Patak's® meals are perfect for a quick fix when you don't have time to cook but still want to eat tasty and authentic Indian food. These meals don't need to be kept cold so are great to eat at work or school.

Now I'm not much of a coconut fan to begin with; however, I have been at excellent Indian restaurants where I've actually enjoyed this dish. Finally, lacking leftovers (except for some fresh tomato salsa lurking in the frig) in the house and wanting to clear cabinet space, I decided to give it a try.

To make Patak's Chicken Korma, slide it out of the cardboard sleeve and puncture several holes in the plastic film on the top of the heat and serve bowl. Microwave on high for 1 ½ minutes and remove from microwave, and then let it stand for 1 minute prior to eating.

I was pleasantly surprised by the authentic taste. I could taste the coconut with flavorful under tones of ginger, turmeric, and cardamom. The sauce was rich with cream, coconut and butter. It was yummy but too rich and sweet for me. I dove into the frig; out came the fresh tomato, onion, cilantro with lemon zest salsa. Something light was needed to cut the rich taste, for me.

Traditionally, light fresh veggies are often added to curries. Oh, my now that tasted much better. If I had known in advance, what I know now. This tasty dish could have been divided into two servings with the addition of veggies. It might not be as easy to pack but your waistline will thank you for it. My husband paid $1.89 for this meal at the discount store. Online, the price was almost $5.00 at most grocery stores.

If you like rich Indian food and don't mind a meal that packs a wallop of 450 calories, 20 g of Fat, 55 mg of Cholesterol, 970 mg of Sodium, 54 g of Carbohydrate, 14 g of Protein, and supplies 0% of your body's daily need for Vitamin A and C, 2% Calcium and 6% Iron, then this dish is for you. I feel like I ate a cardiac arrest waiting to happen. I thought Indian food was to be good for you.

Darn if my hubby doesn't have a different one of these Taste's of India meals here for me to try. At least, this one looks better nutritionally. It is the Vegetable Tikka Marsala. I'll give that one a good. At quick glance, it has 340 calories. That is the same amount of calories as some of the lower 6 in Subway sandwiches that use lean meat and no cheese. I'll give it a whirl. But for the rest of today, it will only be a piece of fruit and a healthy salad for me.