Staff Test Brand New Easy Recipe Kit Range!

To celebrate National Curry Week, the Spicery team decided to test one of our brand new 'Easy Recipe Kit' curries! We have Jamaican Curry joys, magnificent Managalore Fish Curry and super Sri Lankan Tamarind Curry to name a few! Jess – Mangalore Fish Curry After 3 months of toast, pasta and pesto amd wheetos the opportunity to cook an 'easy' recipe kit still seemed a little bit of a stretch! However, the proof in the pudding is in the...  Making! To whip up an amazing, flavoursome fish curry in just over half an hour is a pretty mean feat but one made totally possible! The curry is smooth and coconutty with a delightful tang from the kokum and the salad provides a refreshing mustardy accompaniment. Impressive and unusual and remarkably easy. If I can do it with a tiny baby in tow, anyone can and as a reintroduction to the kitchen, it couldn't have gone any better! (olive thought it was mouthwatering!)   Sarah – Jamaican Curry Kit My first Easy Kit. This one really lives up to the ‘easy’ part in the name! Prep was very simple - particularly if you buy pre-diced meat. With this one you get a choice of either beef or lamb (squash for all the veggies out there!) Then its just the task of roughly slicing the vegetables and setting them to one side whilst you season the meat. The hot sauce spices need soaking first - I did this for about 30 minutes before I started cooking. I always prefer to soak chillies for a decent amount of time when they go into a sauce (must be from years of making Sambal Belacan with soaked chillies!). Coleslaw for this can be home made or bought! After your meat has finished seasoning you simply add the ingredients in one after the other. The step for adding the CURRY WHOLE SPICES is the same as adding the tomatoes. Before this I like to wait for 2-3 mins whilst I fry in the spices until fragrant. Then add water, set to a low heat and leave to cook for 1 hour and 30 mins. Come back 1 hour into the cook time to blend together your hot sauce and cook your rice. The flavours are wonderfully complementary to each other! This is definitely one of my favourite curries now and it was a hit with the family! Quick, simple and tasty.   Kim – Karahi Chicken Karate chicken! Known to the lovely folks of Northern Indian, Pakistan and Bangladesh as Karahi or Kadai chicken this simple dish sizzles with flavours that kick karate style. Having come in after a chilly autumn day I was looking forward to trying one of our *pretty* new speedy kits – this one certainly required minimal effort! A combination of fresh seasonal vegetables and aromatic spices all carried by the sweet sharpness of ginger made this dish a joy to cook. Hardest part? Leaving it to simmer for twenty minutes while I nibbled on chocolate buttons. Yes, truly that easy. After a quick read of the blurb I was fascinated to learn Karahi is actually the Hindi term for a double-handled wok-style pot traditionally used to cook this dish and daily stews. I’m not sure my clunky Tefal wok compared in beauty but it certainly made for some lovely crisped, tender chicken breast, juicy bell peppers, softened garlic and blistered red tomatoes. As my kitchen steamed up with the fragrant smells of ground cumin, mustard seed and chilli slowly covering a delightful medley of swiftly chopped vegetables I got to work on my raita. A few cucumber peels, dollops of creamy yoghurt and a little helping of fresh mint later I had a tasty raita as a side dish, easily doubled for guests or hungry mouths! Less than half an hour after frying the vegetables I was stirring in fenugreek, turmeric, mellow bay and sweet nutmeg into my wok prompting appreciative sniffing from my housemates; I may have been salivating a little bit too… but luckily for my hangry boyfriend and I the kit was as quick as it promised. As I finished off the recipe there was little washing up to do, which is always a bonus, plus an attractively large plate of sweet-and-sour steaming curry ready on my table. We set the table immediately, extra coconut peshwari naans and the Spicery’s very own Insanity Salt to share, and feasted until stuffed. Andrea – Thai Yellow Curry Being the thoroughly organised person that I am, I decided to make this easy kit at the last minute - meaning that I didn't actually have any of the ingredients needed to make the curry to hand. I got on with it anyway and made the curry with half the specified amount of chicken and twice the amount of potato and lemon instead of lime - turned out delicious, though the colour was more brown then yellow... Chris – Laal Maas Our first foray into the easy kit range, the tasty Laal Maas, did not disappoint! As a kit we've cooked before we were surprised at the total lack of effort required to make this dish again. The taste to work ratio was in our favour and after minimal effort on our part we had a tasty curry with a spinach raita! 10/10 would cook again! Suze – Butter Chicken Having boldly stated "Let's not go out for a curry, it'll be taster if we make one ourselves!", I knew I had to deliver the goods - and a recipe kit would be the only way. Thankfully, that very morning Toby emailed around asking who wanted to test one of our new curry kits! Lucky me! I immediately shouted "Shotgun Butter Chicken" (by email). I stopped at the local shop en route home, delighted to find that I owned all but two ingredients already. Then on to the best bit: the cooking. In this new and improved recipe, diced chicken is stirred in with some yogurt, lemon and tandoori spices, while you fry some other spices in a knob of butter. Then add the chicken and cook gently for a bit, stir in some tomatoes, stir in some cream, and bob's your uncle. While that's happening you make a quick salad of cucumber, tomato and onion to go alongside, and you pop some rice on. Done before I could think about it, the curry was rich, creamy, tangy, saucy - in short, everything I want in a curry. It's actually the nicest curry I've had in ages!   Toby – Jeera Chicken Jeera Chicken, a great name said in a scouse accent. It has always been a favourite of mine, so much cumin, so simple, so delicious. Me and the other half whisked ourselves away for a weekend at the Brecon Beacons, and thought there wasn’t a better idea than having a nice warming curry for our cosy cottage. Obviously, it’s a risk cooking in a holiday home as inevitably the pans are all burnt and the knives incredibly blunt, however this was a refreshing change, everything was great! Meaning a simple process, cooking cumin, mixing chicken and cooking chicken, triumph. Jeera Chicken has a lovely earthy taste to it, and if I could epitomise the Brecon Beacons in a curry, it has to be this! Naturally, we cracked open a bottle of prosecco to welcome in National Curry Week, we were ready to face the mountains!   Robyn – Sri Lankan Tamarind Curry Curry in a hurry.. I tested the Sri Lankan Tamarind easy kit, and what an easy kit it was. I had pretty much everything i needed for it in the cupboard. It took me a record time of 40 mins from start to finish. The heat was a tad on the hot side, unfortunately the only yogurt i had was a Muller crunch corner so i decided against pairing the two together. I'd say this is the perfect curry for a cold mid week October meal. Minimum ingredients, minimum time, maximum taste!   Great job by the team! If you'd like to give these recipes a go, take a look at our Easy Recipe Kit range!