Is it a chicken or is it a sausage? (Mattessons Fridge Raiders - Roast Chicken Flavour)

Member Name: marymoose

Product:	Mattessons Fridge Raiders - Roast Chicken Flavour
Date:	07/07/09 (146 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A pleasant enough snack on occasions

Disadvantages: Salty, nothing like chicken really

---Intro---

This morning I was in a hurry, and as I threw some lettuce and yellow pepper into my salad box I noticed the Mattessons Fridge Raiders which hubby stocked up on in Tesco last night since they were on offer for 50p a pack. Normally they are double this which is (in my opinion far too much).

Anyway, I chucked them in with the salad, and now it's coming up to lunchtime I thought that I might as well review them and make back the 50p spent on them (hey, at least I'm being honest here!) and I'm not really being inspired at the moment to review anything else. I should also mention that hubby absolutely loves these, so I wanted to get a packet before they were all gone!


---Fridge Raiders in general---

Fridge Raiders Bites are bite sized pieces of chicken in a packet which you (unsurprisingly) keep in the fridge (please note they can't be frozen). Flavours in the range include roast, chinese spare rib, southern fried, hot and spicy, tikka, and barbeque.

Fridge Raiders claim to "bring out your carnivorous side" - personally I find that a bit strange for a chicken product rather than say a beef product, but there you go.

Today I am reviewing the Roast Chicken Flavour which is essentially the plain normal original flavour!


---The Packet---

The 65g foil type packet is predominantly yellow in colour, boasting that it is "the snack with a bit more bite", and with the obligatory nutritional information on it.


---So, what's in it---

It's chicken, so it's healthy right? Well...there's only 125calories per back, so that's not too bad, and only 0.6g sugar (1% of rda). There's also no artificial flavours, and they are a good source of protein. They're made with 100% chicken breast although 9% of the bites are actually seasoning - roast seasoning (yeast extract, salt, onion powder, wheat flour, garlic powder, sage, natural flavouring), palm oil, rice bran oil, rusk, cornflour, and dextrose.

On the downside, they contain 7.3g fat, 2.9g saturates (15% of rda), and very scarily 1.0g salt (17%).

They are made in an area using wheat and gluten, so watch out if you have allergies. Obviously these aren't suitable for vegetarians as chicken is meat!

Keep them in the fridge and eat within 2 days of opening (like you'd be able to eat half a packet!). The use by date is 2 weeks from now.


---Opening the packet and the eating experience---

The smell on opening the packet is actually similar to Roast Chicken flavoured crisps, so not really much like chicken, but it is pleasant.

There are 14 pieces in my packet - they look very much like shrivelled cocktail sausages, except a lighter colour. They don't look much like chicken at all. On first taste well, it's pretty cold (well, it is from the fridge), quite chewy but soft.

I wouldn't say that these really taste much like chicken at all but they're not much like roast chicken flavoured crisps either (despite the smell), but they really are quite pleasant. I can definitely make out the taste of sage - however this doesn't really remind me much of a roast chicken dinner.

I would imagine that if you like chicken and you like cocktail sausages then would probably like these. I mean, obviously I'd rather have a proper piece of chicken...but then these are a snack pack from the fridge. I think that for what they are they really are pretty good.

Although I'd normally eat these straight from the packet I'm finding they're going reasonably well with my salad. After a while I do find these tend to be a bit dry, and just a little bit too salty so I wouldn't really want more than one packet.


---Finally---

I don't like to think about the conditions Mattessons Fridge Chickens will be kept in, I think we can safely assume that unfortunately they are not free-range.

However, I do think that these are a novel idea, and I do like the concept - chicken from the fridge whenever I want it. In reality they aren't really much like chicken, but they are a pleasant enough savoury snack for occasional use - far too much salt to have too often. From recollection, some of the other flavours though are a little bit more exciting.

More about the range can be found here - http://www.fridge-raiders.co.uk/ - you can also watch the somewhat bizarre advert for them there.

Summary: Give these a go if on special offer...