Do not reheat | Sainsbury's chicken dhansak and aloo saag

Andrew Harrison
Sunday 06 August 2000 00:00 BST
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Sainsbury's Organic Chicken Dhansak with Pilau Rice, 350g, microwave or oven, £3.49 rating 3/5

Sainsbury's Organic Chicken Dhansak with Pilau Rice, 350g, microwave or oven, £3.49 rating 3/5

Sainsbury's Aloo Saag, 300g, microwave or oven, £1.99 rating 5/5

"Due to the nature of organic chicken, the meat may have a stronger flavour," it squeaked on the back of the box, in type so tiny I needed a barcode scanner to read it. This I could not understand. It's a ready meal. Why not put WARNING: FLAVOUR DOES NOT RESEMBLE THAT OF COMPACTED YELLOW PAGES on the front in fluorescent orange? You want people to know that this chicken tastes of chicken.

Organic stuff majors on holistic feel-goodness rather than pampering the carnivore, and the Sainsbury's Dhansak duly presented itself in a rustic, recycled-looking box thoroughly tagged by the Soil Association (message: healthy bowel movements all round). Once scorched by alien energies, it popped out in a splurt of orange sauce, lentils bobbing with merry promise. The sauce was great, all tomatoey sharpness and clingy consistency. The meat, too, was a cut above, firm with a gutsy, gamey aftertaste - when I could find it. Still, 13 per cent meat is all you get.

The Aloo Saag - spinach and potato - was a creamy, dreamy plunge into curry house nirvana, like eating hot mustard-and-turmeric ice cream, and better than the Dhansak by a country mile.

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