Far be it from me leap on every marketing campaign that is dangled before me, but I saw this ad on Facebook for a new range of curry paste and I immediately found myself in the world food section at Tesco. I also found the brand name, GymKhana, amusing. Something about a horse curry.
But anyway. My tesco didn’t have any so I bought something else.
When it comes to curries I am a mass of contradiction. I am a foodie, I am particular about natural ingredients and authentic home cooking from scratch. But I am also lazy, and in practice have unfathomably low standards. I also don’t have a proper kitchen, so any help I can get with the preparation is welcome.
I went for the Spice Tailor Range. I haven’t noticed these before and thought it was worth a try. As these provide for two to three servings per pack, and there being four of us, I decided to try two of the options. Original Tikka Massala, and Fiery Goan Curry.
These cook differently to the usually jar of sauce, and I wish I had thought to photograph it. The sauce is composed of three packets. A dried Spice selection that you add to hot oil, a second sachet with more seasoning in which to cook your meat and veg, in my case this was onion, mushrooms, and chicken. Once the meat and veg was fully coated and the chicken cooked through, you add the final pouch of sauce. I was cooking two at the same time and took care not to mix them up. And I also bought some fresh coriander, but that was given to rabbits before I had chance to use what I needed.
Our curry tastes vary in the house, so two of us had the Tikka with a spoon full of fiery Goan to taste, and two of us had the fiery Goan Curry, and a spoonful of tikka, just to taste.
I served this with oven fries. Not proud of that. Real chips are so easy to make, and are so much better than anything from the freezer, but again, I have no proper kitchen, and even if I did, it was 32 degrees outside, and slaving over the chip pan has never been less appealing.
So how was it?
The chicken tikka looks darker than it should. Chicken Tikka should be an orange red colour like it does from a jar or restaurant, but that said, I have never made one from scratch that came out that colour. They’re always the same brown as any curry. Something I should work on.
I only had a small taste of the curry, but from what I had, it has the mildness of a coconut based curry. Perfectly acceptable, but it wasn’t packing heat.
The Spicy Goan is nice, and I would have it again. The heat is nice, the spices are very pleasant. It tastes like a proper curry.
By the end of the meal the heat from the Goan is kicking in and the lips are going numb. Thats exactly what we want from a curry. Bravo. 9/10
Duggan's Dig 
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