Taste of India Jalfrezi Simmer Sauce product reviews

We love curry in this house - and when I saw all the sauces come up for review - I put my name down for the ones I thought my family would like - and was lucky enough to be given three to review. My husband does most of the cooking in our house, and so upon talking to him, we have written this review (and the reviews for the other two) together.

Looking first at the packet - there is lots of information on the packet - gluten free, free from food stabilisers, MSG and more - a lot of the things we are encouraged to stay away from. It clearly tells you the " hotness " rating (medium) and tells you how many servings is in the packet ( 4 ) . The packet is easy to open - twist and it is ready, with the spices and recipe leaflet attached separately and easily to the back. It is great that each of the flavours is in a distinct colour packet - no mistakenly getting the wrong one at the supermarket!

My husband said that the sauce came out of the packet very easily and left little behind as wastage - always good when feeding a family! He liked this one more than the fish one we tried - saying that the spices were stronger and more flavoursome, and this one was his favourite - despite usually loving very spicy. The recipe booklet had many great ideas for how to use this sauce also - but as my husband is very inventive anyway, we did not use it. I would use it if cooking it - and have stashed it away in the drawer for ideas later.

The taste and flavour was great - not too spicy, not too mild - and very flavoursome. The sauce is not too runny or thick - and our nearly two year old kept stealing the curry from me - so clearly good, and always helpful that the children can/will eat the same meal as us. Absolutely will buy these again, and will happily try the other flavours, based on the great experience with this one.

I have really been enjoying reviewing the taste of India simmer sauces lately. With a really busy life doing charity hampers/parcels, raising children, school, work, doctors etc it really is great knowing I have some simmer sauces in the cupboard that can provide us with a hot meal in minutes, and after a long day...without much effort too!

With all the sauces I have tried so far I have loved the zip lock bag that is stuck to the main bad. It contains spices to add to your cooking and of course a little booklet that tells you what you need to prepare your chosen meal and how to do it. With previous meals I have loved this idea. Thought it was classy and sophisticated. With this meal I realized maybe its not the best move for everything. The extra ingreds you need are printed in the little book. At home, thats fine. In a supermarket, I need to open the little zip lock bag, remove instructions all to see if I need to add stuff :(

In a supermarket I would be extremely uncomfortable doing that, and as a result I would not purchase this simmer sauce id I hadnt already tried it before :( luckily I was referring as not only had I not tried it before, I had never even heard of it lol so this sauce has a nice aroma when cooking but it is very subtle, unlike some of the others in the range. When added to the lamb I noted this one produced twice as much sauce as the rest and was runny. This was great according to my husband. He eata his dinner 7-10hrs after us due to work and said a lot of the sauce had soaked into the rice and it was so good! We also got 5 meals (2 adult, 2 teens and an 8yo) from this. Could have possibly got 6 :)

The kids absolutely loved it, hubby thoroughly enjoyed it, I would eat it again but I definitely prefer others in the range though :)

I am a big fan of the 'Taste of India' simmer sauce range and I was excited to try out this new one from them, "Jalfrezi Simmer Sauce".

I really like the packaging of this range of simmer sauces as the main packet is easy to pour and you don't have to use scissors to open it because is has an easy to open lid. This opening is also the perfect size to fill back up with water using the tap which is great for rinsing out the packet once you have finished using it. I like the fact that the packet has a really easy to see spiciness rating and the instructions on how to make the meal are easy to read and have great clear pictures of each step to follow along with.

When I got out this sauce to cook with I decided that I was going to use it for a vegetarian meal and just grab out some frozen vegetables from the freezer to use in it. I had had a really busy day and needed a meal that was quick and easy to make so that it was ready in time for the kids dinner. This meal did live up to this as it was very quick and easy to make and it tasted quite nice. I definitely prefer some of the other sauces in the 'Taste of India' range over this one but it still tasted nice and the kids ate it well which is always the main thing in our household.

Overall I was pleased with this simmer sauce.

I love that all of these products from Taste of India are Palm Oil free. Something for them to be proud of.

I am not a fan of the little pouch on the outside of the packet as it is made from high quality plastic with zip lock (way to much packaging wastage) but the only way to find out what else other than meat is required you need to open the pouch and pull out the recipe steps. Not the most hygienic if you decide not to buy the packet. This could be better if printed on the main pouch.

These sauces are quick and easy to make. I like that you feel as though you are actually cooking with meal by adding spices, rather than just a standard tip in sauce. This sauce is a bit chunky that the other sauces which I actually like. The tomato flavour was very strong and there was not a lot of bite to the heat of this sauce. It was enjoyed by all the family.

Once again I would love a list of suggestions for adding vegetables to this meal or alternative ways to use. I did think that it would probably make a nice curry pasta sauce.

I wasn't too sure about this sauce, but given that I had to review it I eventually had to bite the bullet and crank open the sauce. My first impression of this was that it wasn't much of anything as, for me, there wasn't any smell to the sauce. I love the little pouch on the back of the packet, it's really handy and adds that extra element to the meal, making it not just a pour and simmer dish, but adds a bit more for you to do and add as much or as little spice as you want to.

I decided to split the sauce in to two dishes, with one half I didn't use any of the spices and with the second half I did use half of the spices, just to see what the differences might be. The half I didn't use the spices in was hot but tolerable whereas the other half was too hot for me but my husband really enjoyed it (he's a fna of spicy things). I wasn't a fan of the overall taste and whilst this is a handy packet of sauce, for me personally, I won't be buying it again, though I will recommend this to my Ethiopian step-dad as it tasted very similar to the sauces he makes.

My first comment is I absolutely love the little pouch at the back of the packet which holds the spices and the recipe. What a fantastic idea. No need for scissors it just pulls apart - genius!!

The recipe card tells you everything you need to know - prep time, cooking time and how many it serves so I knew the quanty pretty much straight away. It has a break down of required ingredients and to be honest we did not have any capsicums and not really a huge fan so left that out. Because it is such a quick meal put the rice in the rice cooker and got straight to work.

I loved the aroma that came from pretty much all of the ingredients. Before I had finished cooking a friend had popped around so my husband had to finish cooking and while I walked her out to the gate the smell followed me it was devine. Walking back into the house it was like a smack in the face and seriously my mouth started watering.

The whole procedure is very straight forward and is detailed perfectly so no confusion. Start off cooking the Jalfrezi Whole Spices - now it is up to you how much you use and we decided to use all of it and just let it take its course. Fried up the chicken and then added the next Jalfrezi Spice Mix - again we used the lot. Poured the whole pouch of Taste of India Jalfrezi Simmer Sauce over the chicken - it does state to add water but decided not to as was rather watery alone. We added fresh cream (had some left over from the Gluten Free Pikelets earlier today.)

Us girls all found it very hot where as my husband found it perfect. We had to add more cream on to it to try and counter it. It was nice, and everyone did finish the plate, but there was just complaints about how hot and spicy it was. If we cook again would try with the Coconut Cream and add extra or even some yoghurt would be nice. Found the cream just made it more creamier. Still a great meal on a cold wintery night.

I was quite surprised at the size of this product. Most of these style of products come in a more condensed and reduced version to reduce packaging. One of the positives of this size however, is that the sauce is already near enough the perfect consistency, and doesn't require a large simmer time, reducing overall cooking time.

The product had an adorable little packet on the back that contained the recipe, whole spices, and ground spices. The recipe was very straight forward (only 6 steps!), though the spice packs required scissors or knives to open (would be nice if they at least had a notch so that I could tear it open). I don't know whether all of the Jalfrezi recipes are the same, but my recipe specified chicken, so that's what I used. Be careful when adding the spices, as the oil can still spit when you add the ingredients. The sauce was very watery, so no additional water needed to be added.

As I am not a fan of capsicums, I left them out of the recipe, and as a consequence the tomato flavor became very prominent, and of the varieties tested, the Jalfrezi has the chunkiest of sauces. While labelled as a medium heat curry, I wasn't able to pick up any heat to it. The strong tomato flavour was enjoyable, but not my favourite.