Microwave Dish Of The Week: Reggae Reggae Chicken

What?

Reggae Reggae Chicken With Rice And Peas £2.

Where?

Asda, Hulme.

The blame

Asda’s Roll Back. What with a saving of 49p, who could resist sampling Levi Roots’ latest attempt at putting music in our food, this time via the microwave.

The circumstances

According to Levi Roots, his Reggae Reggae brand value increased to £30m in 2010. Not bad for a sauce made popular by a song.

Following the initial £50,000 investment on Dragon’s Den, Roots splashed a bit of Reggae Reggae sauce onto anything he could, including Subway sandwiches and most recently, this range of microwave meals.

It’s easy to be drawn to the vibrant packaging featuring the silhouette of the dread headed music man himself dancing, presumably whilst waiting for the microwave to ping. It’s a TV dinner but not as you know it. And it’s to that end that Roots’ takes the liberty of explaining this unrecognisable feast of a microwave meal. ‘It’s the classic Reggae Reggae taste with chicken, tomatoes, butternut squash and peppers and of course that original kick of chilli. It’s definitely got that gimme some more vibe. One love!’

The experience

It’s not much to look at straight out of the freezer. And even once nuked for the first six minutes, it still doesn’t look much like the picture on the sleeve. It actually resembles school dinner slop at first glance, but don’t let that put you off. Complete the nuking process and a further five minutes later it will look far more appetising. Similar to Stag chilli, you know it’s not the real thing but you’re hungry so it will do. And when you’re stuck in you realise it’s actually not bad at all.

Each ingredient holds its own in this meal and the flavour of that beloved Reggae Reggae sauce encompasses them all, singing and dancing in your mouth just as Roots described. It has a powerful but not uncomfortable kick to it and the accompanying rice hasn’t just been left all shrivelled on the sidelines either; each grain has been cocooned in fragrant coconut.

The chicken, whilst a tad dry, is at least there. I did the mandatory chicken count and we’re talking a satisfying twelve chunks of chicken in this meal. It’s certainly good to know there is actually some food in his food, as well as music.

Guilt Factor Rating:

7/10

The full list of ingredients is displayed proudly on the packet and this microwave meal is much more honest than most with lots of recognisable herbs, spices and favours as oppose to strange sounding chemicals and powders. Although I’m not sure how Grandma Roots would feel about this shameless labelling of her age old recipe. Hmmm.

Weighing in at 695kcal, 88g of carbs and 18g of fat per 500g meal however, it’s perhaps not going to be one of your ‘New Year, New You’ diet meals. But it definitely will be the guilty pleasure meal to break that diet with. Because you are going to break it.