HOW WE CONDUCTED OUR TASTE TEST
It's free and fair!
We put out a call to readers to be part of the panel of tasters. Forty of them came together on a Saturday morning to taste ready-made curries from leading supermarkets.
The chefs at HTA Culinary School in Randburg, Joburg, prepared the food as per the package instructions. The panel of tasters were presented with each of the products "naked" without any branding or packaging.
Auditor Jade Craig was on hand to monitor the objectivity of the blind-tasting process, from removing the packing to numbering the products, overseeing the preparation as per the package instructions and adding up the scores.
THE RESULTS
FIRST PLACE: Pick n Pay Butter chicken with rice
Price: R59.90 for 350g
Judges's comments:
- Rebecca: Outstanding flavour.
- Kat: Very much nicer than the other two. There is more spice and I can taste more of the butter.
- Nomvuyiso: This curry smells just proper. It is spicy. It looks better, the sauce is good and there are more pieces of chicken.
- David: Chicken pieces are uniform in size and well-cooked. Nice fruity taste.
SECOND PLACE: Woolworths Butter chicken with rice
Price: R54.99 for 350g
Judges's comments:
- Lindiwe: This butter chicken has the best rice.
- Donovan: There's no chilli and too mild, although good chicken-to-sauce ratio.
- Tracy: The two samples on my table were completely different.
- Thabisile: There is inconsistency between the two samples. Some chicken pieces are chewy, others are perfectly cooked. The theme is inconsistency.
THIRD PLACE: Checkers Spice butter chicken with rice
Price: R39.99 for 300g
Judges's comments:
- Kat: I would buy this as a chicken casserole. Rice was nice and fluffy.
- Donovan: Good flavour but too sweet and not enough of a curry bite.
- Ballin: The sauce is somewhat gelatinous.
- Phindile: The sauce is too thick and a lot of tomato spoils it.
- Thabisile: It looks like soup. Too little chicken versus sauce and rice.
