The Tandoor Chef brand has now officially become Deep Indian Kitchen. We’re actually pretty excited about this change, because in its time, Tandoor Chef was one of the best makers of frozen Indian food. Since there’s been a complete brand overhaul, we at Freezer Meal Frenzy get to revisit a whole bunch of incredibly tasty meals. We’ve already chowed down on the absolutely lovely Potato & Pea Samosas, and now we’re sinking our teeth into the Deep Indian Kitchen Chickpea Kofta Curry.
The previous version of this dish, as far as we can tell, was the Tandoor Chef Kofta Curry with Channa Masala & Spinach Basmati Pilaf. Of course, there have been several changes to the meal — and these changes go way beyond the packaging and title — so it’s perhaps best to just review this as if it’s a brand new item rather than spending a lot of time comparing it to the old version.
Don’t stress out about heating this up — it’s no more difficult to cook than your average Lean Cuisine meal. Simply pop it into the microwave for three minutes, give it a stir, and pop it back in for another minute and a half. Pretty much anyone could cook this! (If you want to see the full cooking instructions directly from the box, check out the package scans at the bottom of this review.)
Our batch came with four chickpea “meatballs” — we put the word meatballs in quotation marks because there’s not actually meat here. That’s great news for vegetarians, because this stuff is absolutely fantastic. These little balls of vegetable goodness are delicious, and they have a really soft consistency that basically falls apart the second they hit your mouth. These are pure joy. We only wish there were more of them in this meal.
The curry sauce is great as well, and any chickpea meatball that’s slathered in this sauce will be exploding with flavor. Seriously, this stuff is great. It’s also quite spicy, so spice-ophobes need not apply. It has that Indian-food type of spiciness — it’s kind of sweet, but it makes your mouth and chest tingly after eating it.
This also comes with a surprisingly generous side of spinach pilaf. The pilaf portion of our tray was packed overfull, so the top of the package was bulging out a bit. Deep Indian Kitching is certainly not being stingy with this pilaf. It’s not the best part of the meal, but it’s still pretty decent. It even has a little bit of spiciness to it, though nowhere near as much as the curry sauce. And speaking of the sauce, if you cover the pilaf with sauce, it becomes quite good.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the most diet-friendly frozen food on the market. With 410 calories and 800 mg of sodium, it’s not going to completely destroy a careful diet, but it’s a bit higher in calories than a lot of diet-friendly alternatives. 800 mg is a lot of sodium too, even for a frozen food.
The Deep Indian Kitchen Chickpea Kofta Curry is a must-try meal for anyone who loves frozen Indian food. If you can’t handle spicy food, or if you’re trying to lower your sodium intake, you might have to skip this, but everyone else should definitely give it a try. We’re really impressed.
To learn more about the nutrition content, ingredients, or cooking instructions for this Deep Indian Kitchen frozen curry, check out our package scans below.
