Last week whilst heading out for a curry I got chatting to Chilli Papas on twitter & they kindly offered to send me a spice mix to try. Now we’re rather partial to a curry so who was I to refuse?

Chilli Papas mixes are authentic curry’s the oil FREE way.

Here’s a bit about Chilli Papas & how they started.

December 30th 2010, I was rushing around after four kids and trying to decide what was for dinner. My sister-in-law came round and wanted to cook a curry for friends on New Year’s Day. Well, being busy that day, Lynn suggested blending the spices and including cooking instructions.The curry was a resounding success and Chilli Papas was born.

Blending fresh spices, Chilli Papas encourage you to cook a curry full of flavour from stratch using fresh ingredients. If you love curries but can’t or won’t cook, Chilli Papas has devised a product that will tantalise your taste buds but is simple to cook, quick to cook and easy to eat. It’s so easy, our kids help us cook it!

They do 5 different curry mixes.

Papas yellow Curry Mix.

This is cooked using a tin of low fat coconut milk and is our take on the creamy thai yellow curry.  This is our least healthy curry but once the amount of calories within the coconut milk is split then the calorie content is still low.

  Papas Cracking Curry Mix

This curry is made using meat, fish or vegetables, it doesn’t have a lot of sauce and is an authentic basic curry that we have been cooking for years, we advise the addition of fresh or tinned tomatoes to add to the sauce.

Papas Vindaloo Mix. Medium

  Papas Vindaloo Mix. HOT

Chilli Papas asked me to choose which I would like, not being a coconut fan that ruled out the Papas Yellow Curry Mix & I’m a bit of a woss with heat so completely discounted both of the Papas Vindaloo Mixes! So it was between the Papas Cracking Curry Mix or the Papas 2 in 1 Tikka Mix, now that 1 intrigued me so I decided to ask for that 1. 2 in 1? Interesting I must say. That was Monday night & on Wednesday my Papas 2 in 1 Tikka Mix dropped through the door.

So Saturday arrived & I’d decided that would be the tasting night! The pack contains 2 sachets of spices & a recipe leaflet with the ingredient lists for Tikka & Tikka Masala. 1 sachet serves 4 people.

Ok now comes the point where I admit I’m not very good at following recipes, well they all need slight tweaking don’t they? So here goes my version of the Tikka Masala:

Ness’s Chilli Papas Tikka Masala.

400g chicken diced (no skin)

4 med/small red oninons

1 tsp of garlic granuels

2 tbs tomato puree

200ml Low Fat natural yoghurt

100 ml water

1 spring onion sliced.

  How pretty do the spices look? They contain a mix of Cumin, Beetroot Powder, Garam Masala, Ground    Coriander, Tumeric & Chilli Powder.

The spices are produced in various countries, & blended & packaged in Fife Scotland.

  1) Chop the chicken in to bite sized pieces & empty 1 of the sachets onto the chicken & stir until all the meat is covered. I left it in the fridge for about an hour.

 2) Put the chopped onion into a hot dry wok & cook for a couple of minutes.  Add the chicken to the wok & fry for 2 mins, add the water, garlic granules & tomato puree, continue to cook for about 10 minutes & add the yoghurt. Turn down the heat so the yoghurt doesn’t curdle. Continue to cook it for about another 5 mins, check the chicken is cooked through & serve.

 To serve:-

I served it on a bed of rice & sprinkled it with the sliced spring onion. I forgot to buy any fresh coriander, but I would normally have added a handful towrds the end of cooking & a sprinkle over the top before serving.

Our Opinion

It was very tasty, but sadly I don’t think the chicken was the best as that in itself had no flavour if you scraped the sauce of it (but that wasn’t the fault anyone except the supermarket I brought it from!), I personally don’t like too much sauce but this & the dry marinating  of  the meat before cooking it made it quite hot, it needed more yoghurt & water adding to it (the original recipe had 300ml of water in it & a stock cube!).

I loved the fact I didn’t need to use any oil to cook this as it made a very healthy meal.

Chilli Papas have covered everything on the leaflet that comes with the sachets, they even include a recipe for raita. The sachets I received have a sell by date of 30 Nov 2013 so they will last a long time (if you can resist them that long!)

If you’d like to find more information about Chilli Papas click here for their website, which includes details on where to buy Chilli Papas or find them on Facebook or twitter.

I was not asked by Chilli Papas to write this review but I was sent a free sachet of their product to try out.

Thank you Chilli Papas, we really enjoyed it & look forward to using the other sachet.