I personally think that the sudden glut of frozen heat and eat meals at the grocery is due to the success of the “meal kit” business.
Those deals where they send you portion cut ingredients and a recipe and it’s supposed to be so easy to create a gourmet meal with no fuss. ( I tried them when they came out, read about that here. Spendy and no less work, sez I).
So all sorts of frozen food companies have come out with meals, kits, and there are fast food branded ones, and even the big grocery chains and WalMart have their own take on the concept.
My experiment today is from the Gorton’s company, (over 150 years old) the people you’re used to buying crispy seafood filets and fish sticks that never get crispy. This is a shrimp bowl, with ‘black garlic and wine” (sauce) rissotto.
I know a dozen people who won’t even try risotto from scratch at home, so this is a surprise. In smaller print, there’s a reference to ‘parmesan cheese,’ but to me, that was the predominant flavor in the rice.
Here’s the full ingredient list: (Cooked arborio rice, Shrimp (Shrimp, salt, sodium di-, tri-, and polyphosphate [to retain moisture], sodium bisulfite and sodium citrate [preservatives]), water, mushrooms (mushrooms, water, salt), olive oil, cream, Parmesan cheese (pasteurized cow’s milk, cheese culture, salt, enzymes, black garlic and wine seasoning (maltodextrin, dehydrated garlic, vinegar solids, modified corn starch, spices, malic acid, dehydrated parsley, black garlic powder, soy lecithin, lactic acid, jalapeño pepper, white wine solids, natural flavors), onions, corn starch, garlic (garlic, water), butter, white wine (contains sulfites), sea salt, parsley, tara gum).
There were about 8-9 shrimp in the bowl, which are frozen solid, of course, so when you microwave (three minutes, stir, one minute) a lot of the trapped moisture in the shrimp is going to escape and they are going to shrink. So I added a half dozen, because I had them on hand, and I could. There are mushrooms, which retained their texture well. They look like slices of baby bellas. The box says a “hint of parmesan” but as I said above, I think it’s a pretty dominant flavor.
The risotto was creamy as it should be and the shrimp remained very firm, as they should be too.
Bottom line? I surprised myself and liked it. Not sure if it’s supposed to be two servings or not, it wouldn’t have been at my house. It was a comfortably sized serving for me.
It was $5.99 and a bogo yesterday. There’s a coupon below you might want to try. Their Entire product line. Where you can pick some up.
Frozen, out of the box
Plated after microwave
Coupon
Gortons Shrimp Bowl Meal Review
Gortons Shrimp Bowl Meal Review