Two taste tests : Blue Dragon Laksa Curry Paste & Asda Meatballs

Not both at the same time, I hasten to add! 


First of all, I have to tell you that neither of these items involve any sort of sponsorship.  I obtained the paste from an online offer that was open to all and I bought the meatballs.

So - the Blue Dragon Laksa Curry Paste.

Now this is an interesting curry paste, as it is more Thai than Indian.

However, in the "recommended recipes", it involves Madras curry paste - so I was a bit confused.  However, the paste itself turned out to be a light, lemongrassy, gingery kind of paste that indeed required some extra "oomph" to make a flavoursome curry.  To my way of thinking, a curry was never meant to be one-dimensional or bland.  However, even with the help of some star anise, madras curry powder, coconut milk, additional chilli and seasoning, this curry stayed fairly two-dimensional.

In fact, towards the end, I had to bail out as I began disliking the flavour intensely.  As I said to son & heir (who enjoyed the curry), when something is starting to make the skin of your back crawl, it's time to stop eating it.

Hubby thought the end result was okay - nothing to write home about.

Looked (and smelled) very promising, at this stage!

I think, if I were ever to try this curry paste again, I would leave out the coconut milk and the madras curry powder and perhaps aim for a lightly flavoured, but quite intensely chilli hot, prawn curry.  I think that the curry powder and coconut milk made it very difficult for the paste to shine through and overpowered the sweet flavours that it contained.  A shame, considering it was one of the "recommended recipes"!

As for the Asda Meatballs, if I ever see one of those on my plate again, it will be far too soon.

Hubby took charge of this one and baked the meatballs in the oven, before including them in a rich red wine and tomato sauce, over spirali pasta.  The sauce was divine - but the meatballs were, to coin hubby's phrase, "meat porridge".  Bleugh!  I'm afraid I like my meatballs to be firm, not squishy.  The flavour wasn't bad at all as they do contain 80% beef, the killer was the texture.  I just thank goodness that he oven baked them and didn't decide to cook them in the tomato sauce - in which case I suspect they'd have dissolved.  ~shudder~  Never again.  

Beautiful sauce - shame about the meatballs!

.