Premium Curry Sauces - Product Review

I'm a real fan of Indian food, but I rarely seem to find the time to cook an Indian meal from scratch. All the spice grinding and preparing ginger and garlic pastes is so time consuming. The last time I decided to make an Indian meal I was in the kitchen for 3 hours. And although the results were delicious, how often do you have that amount of time to prepare a meal?

I've always found the Indian cooking sauces available at the supermarkets really disappointing. But I thought I'd take a look at some of the more interesting variants available and put them to the test, to see how they compare. And this is the result of my product review.

First up was a Meena's Jalfrezi sauce that I picked up at Waitrose, priced at £2.19 for a jar. At first, it looks like it's produced by a small manufacturer, and so that's why I decided it should be one of my test sauces. But on closer examination, Meena is one of the Patak family, and so the sauce is actually mass produced. Not surprising then that it turns out to be a rather gloopy mixture with very small pieces of unidentifiable ingredients and the false shine that comes with ambient sauces. It was really not very pleasant at all.
I used chicken breast and even added in a few vegetables, but the result was extremely disappointing. I really wouldn't recommend this sauce at all.
 
Second was Mangalore Herb Curry Sauce from the Spice Tailor, again purchased at Waitrose at a cost of £2.89. This is an interesting idea - a large sachet of sauce with a selection of spices such as cinnamon, cardamon and chilli that you fry in oil in a pan first before adding the meat, and then the sauce. 

I had high hopes for this, partly because the range has been created by Anjum Anand who's a TV chef and cookery writer. But also because I liked the idea of having some real, live spices to start things off. Again I used chicken breast and added in some vegetables. But I found the result a bit insipid - the taste was quite one dimensional and the sauce was really quite thin. Given the packaging suggests this is relatively hot (2 chillis on the label) I thought the sauce was quite bland. I might be tempted to try another of the sauces, but given the version I tried is supposedly the spiciest, I'm wondering how flavoursome the others would actually be.

The third sauce I tried was from Mamajaans - Belsize Bhuna - which I found in my local Budgens and at £3.69 was by far the most expensive of the 3 sauces. But it's a chilled sauce, so it hasn't had to go through the same treatment processes that ambient sauces do. There are a range of sauces - all with names that make a nod to places around North London which appealed to me as a Crouch Ender.

I used this sauce with lamb, again adding vegetables and the result was very tasty. Although not quite spicy enough for my taste. I could definitely see why it had won a Good Taste award. This was definitely my favourite. Head and shoulders above the Meena's offer, and definitely superior to the Spice Tailor version. But then, it's quite a lot more expensive. But in my view, quality is worth paying for. You can learn more about Mamajaan's on their website http://www.mamajaans.co.uk

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