Awaken The Dragon | Blue Dragon Frozen Ready Meals

Hey!

Welcome to a brand new post! The guys over at Blue Dragon sent me some of their new frozen ready meals to review so I thought that today I would talk to you about what I thought of them!

Blue Dragon began back in the 1970's when the brand discovered that there was nothing in the supermarkets to help British people recreate the authentic taste of Asian food at home in a simple and easy way. So Blue Dragon headed out to the Far East themselves, to bring back the most authenticand most exciting flavours to British society. Blue Dragon still travel to the Far East to perfect their products and are well known for their noodles, crackers, sauce pouches, dips and much much more. 

Blue Dragon also decided to bring out frozen ready meals for those who don't have the time or energy to create an authentic Asian dish. They have created four dishes and they are £2 and are stocked in most supermarkets.

Dish Number 1: 

The first dish I tried was Chicken Chow Mein with Egg Noodles.

This is described as 'Cooked egg noodles with strips of cooked breast, sliced shitake mushrooms, spring onions and red pepper in a soy and oyster flavour soy sauce.'

I loved the size of strips of Chicken as you could tell they were pieces of Chicken compared to the little stringy pieces that you normally get within ready meals. I liked the deep sauce as it complimented the Chicken well and I love Red Peppers. I didn't mind the Mushrooms as they added a deep note along with the sauce but I think that this might put some people off as I know that some people detest Mushrooms.

Dish Number 2: 

I then tried the Sweet and Sour Chicken one a couple of days later.

The dish is described as 'Cooked chicken breast pieces in a sweet and sour sauce with sliced spring onions, water chestnuts, red pepper and pineapple chunks, served with egg fried rice.'

Again, I loved the Chicken due to being able to tell that it was Chicken within the ready meal. I could tell that the Sweet and Sour Sauce was authentic and I loved the sweetness of Pineapple. I could eat Pineapple all day long! I think that the Spring Onions added a needed crunch and the Egg Fried Rice tasted great and soaked up some of the sauce.

Third Dish

Time for Sweet Chilli Noodles.

This is described as 'Cooked egg noodles and tender strips of cooked chicken breast in a spicy sweet chilli sauce with sliced red pepper, water chestnuts and spring onion.' 

I do think that it was more Chilli than Sweet Chilli but I think that this is the perfect day when it's drizzly outside and you just want something quick. I love a good bit of Red Pepper and the Water Chestnuts against the noodles was such a good contrast in textures!

Last Dish

The last dish that is in the ready meal range is Chicken In Black Bean Sauce.

This is described as 'Cooked chicken breast strips in a black bean sauce with diced red and green peppers, served with egg fried rice with sliced spring onions.'

I love Black Bean dishes but I normally get them with Beef or Special so they end up having a little bit of everything so to find a pure Chicken one was different for me. As a Black Bean dish goes, this was delicious as the contrast between deep yet dark sauce and light Chicken was delicious. I love how the rice took on some of the sauce and went from a pale white to a darker colour. Again, I'd enjoy this when its a bit moody outside, maybe?

What's your favourite Chinese Meal? Let me know down below! 

Thank you to the guys over at Blue Dragon for sending these over and I hope that you have enjoyed this food based post. I hope that you come back next time for another post!

Thanks for reading! 
Jamie x 

This post is in collaboration with Blue Drago. All views, opinions and ramblings are my own. 

Mini Pataks Ready Meal Review

Hey!

A week or so ago, Pataks sent me one of their new frozen ready meals to try out and review so I thought that today I would tell you guys what I thought of the product.

Pataks is a curry business that started in England in 1957. Pataks have won awards for their chutnies, pickles and pastes. 9000 of Britains Indian restaurants. They have been successful with their brand globally and their brand is sold in most countries. Their HQ is within Manchester and most/all of their products are sold in most big supermarkets.

I had the choice of choosing between four different flavours but due to not being the biggest fan of curries I decided to choose Chicken Tikka Masala. Chicken Tikka Masala is a classic Curry dish within England so I automatically knew that I was going to love it!

The description of the ready meal is Marinated Chicken, Fenugreek Leaf, Cumin, Tomato & Cream. Served with Pilau Rice which is exactly how a Chicken Tikka Masala should sound like!

The meal contained good chunks of Chicken. When you get a meat based ready meal you normally get very small pieces whereas this meal had lovely massive pieces of the Poultry which I absolutely loved. It meant that I could definitely tell that it was a Chicken ready meal.

The Fenugreek Leaf and Cumin gave the dish a herbal hit which made it fabulous against the sweetness of the Pilau Rice. It just made it one of those dishes that you could definitely enjoy at this time of the year. You know when its getting colder and its getting darker earlier? Then.

The instructions said to add water halfway through to the rice which sounded weird but it made the rice soft, fluffy and wasn't dry at all and meant that I could eat more and more of this. I might have to start doing this whenever I cooked rice as it made such a difference!

I would give this a 9.5/10. It would be definitely a 10 if I could a lot more of it because it was quite delicious! If you want to grab one of these ready meals to try for yourself then head over to your local Tesco's as they are stocked there!

Have you ever tried anything from Pataks before? What did you think of it?

I hope that you have enjoyed this blog post! I hope that you come back next time for another blog post!

Thanks!
Jamie x

This post was in collaboration with Patak's. All views, opinions and ramblings are definitely mine.