When it comes to ready meals I'm not the worlds biggest fan of them really but having said that I lead a busy life and have far better things usually to do with my time than stand grafting for one person over a stove half the day so will occasionally purchase a ready meal for quickness.

Doing most of my weekly shopping in my local Asda store I am very much aware that they often have an offer on their frozen ready meals and that they sell either any 5 of their meals for £4.00 or £1 each. This was one of my options.

The Packaging:

Red coloured box and the front and back of the box appear the same. There is a photograph of the curry on there and we are told that it is Asda 'Chosen By You' Prawn Curry With Rice,' Prawns in a mildly spiced curry sauce, with white rice', cook from frozen, that there are no artificial colours, flavours or hydrogenated fat in it and there is an at a glance nutritional chart shown. Other information on the sides of the box includes ingredients and allergy advice, there is a full nutritional chart shown, we are told how to heat it through and contact details for Asda are listed. Inside the box the meal comes in a rather large black plastic container with a plastic film over the top. Nice enough packaging from Asda and of course it is informative enough.

The Meal itself:

Well you need to cook this from frozen and you can either cook it in the oven or in the microwave in for about 8 minutes. Me being me, I microwaved mine, found it to be cook through and hot within that time too.

I was impressed that the curry looked nice and the rice didn't look stodgy or wet and that in the container there was dead on half curry and half was rice.

Starting with the rice it was white rice. Cooked to al dente, not one bit soggy but not seasoned however it was ok and nothing couldn't be sorted in that respect....I simply added a bit of my own salt.

The curry was an orangy colour with plenty of sauce though the sauce wasn't one bit runny and I could see plenty of small, well formed pink prawns, and tiny cubes of red pepper within it...apart from that nothing else at all so it all appeared rather plain really.

The curry sauce was really, really mild. I couldn't detect any of the apple, coconut, chilli, garlic or ginger flavours it is said to have within it in the ingredient list at all and for me it completely lacked flavour and seasoning. The prawns though tasted plump and juicy and like prawns should do really and I was impressed anyway that at least they weren't tough through being cooked.

All in all this is a rather bland meal that looks ok and is edible but I struggled to find any flavour within it apart from the prawns!

Nutritional Information Per Meal (400g):

Calories: 47
Sugar: 5.2g
Fat: 11.6g
Sat fat: 6.8g
Salt: 2.3g