Finger Food (Old El Paso Fajita Dinner Kit)

Member Name: wigglylittleworm

Product:	Old El Paso Fajita Dinner Kit
Date:	06/07/09 (105 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A tasty midweek meal

Disadvantages: The kit is fairly expensive

Old El Paso produce a few different fajita kits, the one I am going to review is the crispy chicken fajitas which sells for around £2.99 in the supermarkets. The kits contains 8 soft flour tortillas, a sachet of crispy coating seasoning mix, a shaker bag and a sachet of mild salsa.

To make the crispy chicken, you place 500g of chicken breast strips into the supplied shaker bag, add 2 tablespoons of oil and the sachet of breadcrumbs and simply shake to coat. The breadcrumbs are the bright orange that you would associate with ruskoline but they have a spicy kick to them. I was a bit worried that coating the chicken in this way would not work very well but upon opening the bag the chicken was perfectly covered with a thin layer of crumbs. The chicken is then baked in the oven for 18 minutes until cooked through and nice and crispy on the outside and served with the tortillas.

The box suggests cooking the tortilla wraps in the microwave or oven to heat them through but I have much better results heating them directly on a gas flame. Obviously you need to be careful doing this, I tend to do the first side with the gas flame up high and then flip over and do the other side on a low flame, each side needing just a few seconds cooking time. I find tortillas rather doughy and chewy when either eaten cold or heated in the microwave but cooking them over a direct flame seems to make them lighter and more airy and the little blackened bits are far more tasty!

To serve, you simply roll the chicken inside the tortillas with the salsa and they also suggest adding sour cream and lettuce and tomato. This meal is a huge hit with everyone I have served it to, child and adult alike with the kids especially loving the fact they get to ditch the cutlery and roll their own fajitas. I don't generally enjoy eating breaded chicken products because they are made with horrible off cuts of chicken but these crispy strips made with decent quality chicken are thoroughly delicious with the meat nice and tender on the inside and the seasoning adds a nice bit of spice without being too hot. When you first see the chicken and tortillas on the plate they dont look like they will fill you up but the meal is really satisfying.

The nutritional info on the box is not much help as it just gives information per 100g for the tortillas and breadcrumbs. I think how healthy the meal is depends very much on the accompaniments you have with the fajitas. I tend to skip the sour cream and place bowls of grated cheese and a huge mixed salad onto the table so that people can help themselves. This means that everyone can have a meal that suits their own tastebuds, fussy little nephew can just have chicken and cheese and bread and I can have loads of salad. I don't think the salsa is particularly nice, there is a decent amount but it tastes predominantly of tomato puree and is very mild and not nearly as nice as freshly made salsa.

When there is just me and daughter eating dinner, I save the leftover chicken and put it into the fridge and it tastes just as nice cold the next day and a chicken wrap is easy to make up in the morning to put into a lunchbox.

I really love the crispy chicken fajita kits as they make a delicious midweek meal which is prepared with very little fuss. The only thing I don't like is the price of the kits, at £3 a go it is a fairly expensive meal once you add in the cost of the chicken and accompaniments. Luckily the kits are fairly frequently on various half price or BOGOF offers making them far more affordable. I do keep meaning to look up recipes for spicy breadcrumbs so that I can recreate the same meal for less money but until I do that then the kits will be a regular buy for me.

Summary: A delicious meal