Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Indian Food in a jiffy

If before last night you tried to tell me it was possible to make high quality Indian food in your home in 30 minutes. I would have called you a liar. And maybe pulled your hair a little.

But now! I have seen the light, and it is called Gourmantra.

Gourmantra is a family run company from Ontario that was started by Rekha Prasad and her two daughters. They have created 4 meal kits containing the spices and sauces needed to make authentic Indian food in your very own kitchen.

I was lucky enough to receive a kit to make Butter Chicken, one of my favorite Indian dishes.
Here's what the kit contained:

We've got rice, ginger and garlic puree, tomato puree, and butter chicken spice blend. All you need to have at home is oil, chicken, water and cream.

The directions are clear and easy to follow. In just under 30 minutes I had a pot of basmati rice and a pan of the most wonderful smelling butter chicken. The sauce on the chicken was fantastic - spicy, but not over the top, and so flavorful. The kit (which says it makes 3-4 servings) easily fed all 4 of us. Although at first I thought that perhaps there was too much sauce for the chicken, we scraped that pot clean.

In addition to the Butter Chicken, Gourmantra also has kits for Channa Masala (chickpeas), Tandoori, and Korma, for which you could use whatever meat/vegetable you so desire.

I was sorely disappointed to learn that currently these kits are only available for sale in Ontario. I am keeping my fingers and toes crossed that the company will (soon!) be selling their great products out West too.


7 comments:

breadchick said...

OH NO FAIR!! I'm disappointed that it will take 20 more years to find its way below the border (ala we are just now getting pre-cooked rice available here) But, the next time I'm on a project in Toronto, I'm stocking up...TSA and Customs won't know what to make of that!!

Annie said...

Wow, that sounds interesting. I have never tried cooking Indian food before. It scares me. I am not used to using a lot of spices in my food and I think I would probably over do it.
The kit is a great idea. Don't you love when you discover something so fantastic that you can't wait to tell everyone about it? Thanks for sharing!

MyKitchenInHalfCups said...

So I can only hope that one day sooner than 20 years, this will cross over the border into Seattle first and I'll find it.
This really does sound excellent.

Sara said...

Mary - will you buy one or two for me and send them to me???????

Annie - I have one Indian cookbook but it's pretty advanced. I'm thinking of looking online for some easier ones. I love Indian food. Kamloops seems to have a lot of Indian restaurants too.

Tanna - if I hear anything, I will let you know. It was just super.

Anonymous said...

Thank You! for you kind words Sara.

To breadchick, annie and MyKitchenInHalfCups:
We plan to get the Gourmantra meal kits below the border to you sooner than 20 years. : ) just keep an eye on our website www.gourmantra.com

Best,
Mona
Gourmantra Foods Inc.

dynagrrl said...

That looks very cool.... I love Indian but find it a total pain to make at home (as you can tell by the high volume of takeaway on my site)!

Anonymous said...

breadchick
"ala we are just now getting pre-cooked rice available here"

pre-cooked rice is the grossest invention ever - in this kit i believe the rice is uncooked you have to cook it yourself freshly

its very easy to cook the starch staples at home, rice/pasta etc.

and it will taste better and use less preservatives.