Winner!
Marks & Spencer Cook! chicken breasts with garlic, parma ham and mushrooms, £5.99
A vision in brushed silver packaging, the M&S Cook! range exceeds
readymeal expectations to an almost comical degree. For once, the additive-free claims are genuine. We eat it with Cook! microwave-in-the-tub spinach, peas and asparagus.
Cathy says ‘This is fantastic. There’s nothing extraneous here and what there is is exactly what it claims to be: chicken, portobello mushrooms, parma ham, garlic and lemon butter, rosemary. As a result you can taste all the flavours. The veg is great, too. It stays crisp in spite of its nuking.’
Equal 2nd place
Waitrose fish pie, £5.99
The posh one, not to be confused with the supermarket’s more plebeian ‘fisherman’s pie’, which costs half as much. This boasts salmon, cod, smoked haddock and prawns in a cream and parsley sauce, topped with ‘comforting’ cheddar and potato. ‘Ideal with a glass of creamy, moderately oaked New World Chardonnay,’ says the blurb. We’ll be the judge of that, thanks very much.
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Cathy says ‘Very impressive. There’s lots of fish, a good mix of it too, and the general texture’s convincingly homemade. The sauce is creamy in a good rather than a fake way. Fish pie is always going to be a bit salty, but this gets away with it. The only disappointment is the potato topping, which is a bit too “fondant”-y.’
Equal 2nd place
Maison Blanc Vite lobster and crayfish salad, £15.95
Maison Blanc’s new range of takeaway food, Vite (available from its shop at 193 Piccadilly, W1), includes ‘lunch in a box’
Plats du Jour. Choose between lobster and crayfish salad, charcuterie and cheese platter (£13.50) and tarte provençale salad (£11). Included are two mini-pâtisseries; a roll and butter; salt and pepper; salad dressing; and a drink of your choice which can, if you’re willing to pay a supplement, be champagne. Not exactly a readymeal in the traditional sense, but hey…
Cathy says ‘Quality-wise, you can’t fault it; the fish is fresh and tasty, the pâtisseries as delicate as you’d expect. But it’s not very substantial. It took me about a minute to eat. Strip away all the fancy packaging and it’s not much better than those Pret plated salads. And £15.95 is taking the piss.’
3rd place
Tesco Finest tandoori chicken masala with lemon pilau rice and naan bread, £3.84
Tesco became the first supermarket to sell ‘gourmet’ ready meals when it launched its Finest range in 1998. Initial dishes were impressive, then quality dipped as it slapped the brand on anything vaguely posh-looking. No artificial flavourings or colourings, and the only preservative (calcium propionate) is in the naan bread.
Cathy says ‘A lot better than you think it’s going to be. The texture of the chicken is quite convincing, though I wouldn’t be surprised if it had been adulterated in some way. It’s a bit sweet and there’s an overpowering taste of garlic purée, but otherwise the sauce is acceptable. The rice is dry and crunchy: baking it never works. The naan is the weak link; it’s all fluffy, like a cheap doughnut.’
4th place
Homemade Thai green chicken curry from Jack Frost, £4.95
Based in Chelsea, Jack Frost (www.jack-frost.co.uk) is one of a new breed of dedicated posh ready meals suppliers.
All food is freshly prepared by its chefs using top-quality ingredients, then flash-frozen to preserve the taste and texture. The Thai green curry doesn’t come with rice; you have to cook your own from scratch, which is a pain if you’re in a hurry. There’s also a whopping £5 delivery charge.
Cathy says ‘It has a homely authenticity, but it’s bland and stodgy, and baking it in the oven – the recommended mode of cooking – just dries it out even more. You can’t taste any ginger or lemongrass. On the plus side, it’s not over-salted and the chicken is plentiful, tender and obviously good quality.’
5th place
Sainsbury’s Taste The Difference beef stroganoff, £3.99
‘True to its Russian roots,’ says the blurb, which might surprise Charles Briere, the French chef who invented beef stroganoff in the 1890s. Allegedly contains 12 per cent single cream and 10 per cent double cream, but you’d never know. We eat it with Taste The Difference red cabbage and (fresh) new potatoes and broccoli.
Cathy says ‘It tastes of stale paprika, nothing else. The beef makes me think of wet towels, but otherwise it’s okay in a slimy, tenderised sort of way. The mushrooms are weird, aren’t they? They explode between your teeth like little bombs of salt water. The real shocker is the red cabbage. It says it’s “braised with red wine and brown sugar for rich sweetness”. It’s absolutely rank, like long strips of overcooked onion, marinated in cranberry juice. Yeuch.’
Time Out London magazine (Issue 1846)
