A LOVELY LAMB-LIKE LUNCH! (Quorn Lamb Style Grills)

Member Name: Wee_Jackie_163

Product:	Quorn Lamb Style Grills
Date:	04/11/09 (55 review reads)
Rating:

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Having been vegetarian in the past, a lifestyle choice of mine that had a span of a decade, I have tried several Quorn products over the years, some of which I still buy regularly and some of which I detest. Due to me being veggie for so long, I am wary when eating certain meat-based products and could never be described as the world's biggest carnivore! For this reason, I still tend to buy a fair few products aimed at the Vegetarian diet as I prefer these types of meals to meat, most of the time.

Always on the look out for new products in the Veggie market, I do tend to sample new offerings when they catch my eye, in particular from the 'Quorn' range of meals and snacks. For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, Quorn is a man-made meat substitute and is completely suitable for vegetarians and vegans.

Having spotted a few new additions to the Quorn range recently, I decided to give some of them a try out. One such item that caught my eye was a box containing two Quorn "Lamb Style Grills" which is 200g in weight and cost me the brilliant little sum of £1 from my local Farmfoods frozen food store. Considering that these grills fed my partner and me quite comfortably (with a serving of potatoes and vegetables) I do think that this offers brilliant value for an evening meal for two adults!

The cardboard box containing the Quorn grills is fairly basic in appearance and in terms of appearance but to be fair it does do the job! There is a picture of a rather plastic-looking Quorn lamb style grill on the front of the box and I can quite clearly see that there are little flecks of herbs, or what I assumed to be the 'mint and rosemary glaze' on top of the Quorn, and this makes it look a little more appetising.

When cooking these Quorn grills, I opted to pop them in the oven, although there are instructions for microwave cooking too, should this be your preference. It is worth noting that the microwave option takes mere minutes to cook these grills, so this may be beneficial to those of you who have been out working all day and are in need of a quick and easy evening meal! As I had the oven on for other accompaniments to my meal anyway, I shoved my Quorn grills onto a baking tray and popped them into the oven for around 16 minutes or so, as instructed to do so on the reverse of the packaging. I do think that this is still a very quick meal when compared to alternative similar frozen products, some of which take a good half hour or so to cook through.

My first impressions of the Quorn grills when I was placing them in the oven, was that they looked to be very dry and dull. I thought that they also looked to be very 'false' and even though I could quite easily see flecks of herbs and mint on top of the grills, I had all but made my mind up that these wouldn't be a particularly winning product... the two Quorn grills resembled something like thick brown cardboard and looked completely unappetising.

As the grills were cooking, I was aware of the most delicious smell wafting from the oven which at first I though was coming from the potato rosti side dish I had in the oven at the same time. When I discovered that there was NO smell whatsoever coming from the potatoes, I turned my attention to the Quorn grills and I could see that not only had the appearance of the grills changed dramatically, but they looked to be quite delicious and were almost 'sizzling' as the glaze on top of the grills cooked.

The smell coming from the grills was extremely mouth-watering and the aroma was predominately that of rosemary, which I do find to be very appetising anyway. I couldn't quite believe the transformation that had taken place in only ten short minutes and I started to wonder whether the evening's meal wasn't going to be a bit of a wash-out after all!

A further six or eight minutes later and the cooking time was complete. Checking each Quorn grill was cooked sufficiently, and paying particular attention to the centre of each of them as I did this, I was satisfied that the cooking time given on the instructions had been bang-on for once! Once served alongside the potato rosti and some peas and carrots, I did think that all in all the dinner looked to be very attractive and the smell coming from the Quorn grills was absolutely divine!

Cutting into one of the grills, I could see that the consistency was similar to that of other Quorn products, in that it resembled the consistency of chicken or something similar. I found that there were no hard bits of gristle-like matter throughout the whole of the Quorn grill, and I also found that the texture was quite soft and not overly chewy or anything.

The glaze to these Lamb style Quorn grills is what really sets them apart from other products like this that I have tried in the past. The glaze is, in a word, delicious. The taste of the rosemary and the mint can quite easily be detected in the glaze and both compliment each other perfectly, with neither one overpowering the other. The taste is subtle enough to allow us to detect the 'lamb grill' flavour itself underneath the taste of the glaze, yet it is flavoursome enough to tantalise my taste buds and keep me wanting more.

I did find that the glaze to the Quorn grills was quite well seasoned in itself, although I couldn't say that I found it salty. I personally wouldn't have thought that any salt or pepper needed to be added to the grills, such was the balance of seasoning and flavours correctly applied.

My partner and I both thoroughly enjoyed these Lamb style grills, and I for one will definitely be stocking up on them, particularly while they are on offer of only £1 a box! I would thoroughly recommend them and suggest that you give them a try if they sound like your kind of thing.

The nutritional information on the reverse of the cardboard box informs me that each grill will provide me with 130 calories and 6g of fat, which I personally don't think is excessive, particularly when I saw the fairly generous size of the grills. I would say that the size of them is on a par to similar products such as vegetable grills or lamb/beef grills. For those of you who are unfamiliar with these types of products, imagine a small steak and you're half way there!

There is also information on the packaging which informs me that these Quorn grills are of course suitable for a vegetarian diet, and that they are a good source of fibre. As well as that, they contain no artificial colours or preservatives. There is sufficient allergy information provided on the packaging too so that we can make an informed choice as consumers.

All in all I would THOROUGHLY recommend these, they are one of the best 'veggie' products I have tried in absolute years and I think they can only be awarded top marks, such was our enjoyment in sampling these tasty grills! Truly delicious!

Summary: Brilliant product and great value... This one is worth trying!