Schwartz Authentic Indian Review

Every Friday night Mr JibberJabber and I have either an Indian or Chinese meal. Not for us are takeaways but instead we opt for a simple jar of cooking sauce and add whatever meat and vegetables that we fancy. Over the years we have probably eaten our way through every major brand and supermarket own version of korma, balti and biryani sauce without ever settling on a favourite. Therefore we were rather pleased to be offered the chance to try something different in the form of some of the Schwartz Authentic Indian Recipe Mix and Slow Cookers range.

Once the Juniors had finally been despatched to bed we set upon constructing our Friday treat. Our first choice was the Korma. The added ingredients list is simple – oil, an onion, chicken breasts and semi-skimmed milk. Mr JibberJabber always adds a sliced onion to curry anyway, the oil and milk we already had and instead of chicken breast we used turkey breast. You start by frying the onion and then adding the meat and recipe mix. As soon as opened the packet I could smell all the spices coming through. A quick look through the ingredients and you can see it contains cumin, ground coriander seed, chilli powder, ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, paprika, turmeric and cayenne pepper. That all sounds like a very strong and potent mix but as a korma it isn't hot but very flavoursome. The milk is then added and the sauce is cooked though to allow it to thicken.

We always serve our curries with basmati rice and this was the suggested serving accompaniment. It also gave a tip of adding flaked almonds and sultanas both of which I had in the kitchen cupboard. We lightly dried fried the flaked almonds in a small frying pan so they started to release their natural oils and sprinkled on top. After all of this it was time to serve up.

So how did it taste? Unlike jar sauces this isn't sloppy or overly rich. The sauce coated the turkey just perfectly. Usually I end up with a great pool of sauce covering the rice and being a little strange I do like to keep some of the rice sauce-free so I can eat it plain. Since you use semi-skimmed milk in it rather than cream it's a lot lighter than usual jar sauces. I don't like hot curries as it's all about the taste for me and this korma was just right. It was full of flavour and with the addition of the flaked almonds it had some extra texture to it. Mr JibberJabber liked it so much that he was still raving about it when Miss JibberJabber appeared the next morning. Overall verdict: Recommended and we will buy again.

I was sent a selection of Schwartz mixes for review purposes. The words, opinions and photographs are my own.