Trader Joe's Thai Green Curry Simmer Sauce

This is Day Two of Coconut Week. 


I know next to nothing about Thai cuisine. I have never before purchased any grocery product labeled as a Thai food (other than things like rice that just happen to come from Thailand). I have never before bought any sort of curry sauce.

So why did I get this? Simple: I was looking to increase the number of different kinds of products that I could fit into Coconut Week! See, right there on the label? "A classic Thai curry sauce with coconut & lemongrass...." In fact, coconut milk is the second ingredient, after water, and "organic shredded coconut" is in there, too.

Besides, it has an elephant on the label, and I like elephants. If this stuff is good enough to feed to elephants, it's good enough for me.

I really had no idea how to use it, so I made something up. I took some seitan-based fake chicken strips, put them in a big bowl with the entire contents of this jar dumped in, and let it marinate in the refrigerator overnight. Then at dinnertime, I just let the whole mess simmer until it was clear that the sauce was substantially thickening, and poured it over some rice. (Thai rice, by handy coincidence, is what I had on hand.)

For all I know, the marinating may have added nothing; perhaps I would have achieved the same results without that step. But something was right about what I did, because I liked the results a lot. Or, as they say in Thailand, mucho bueno. It was flavorful but mild; distinctly currylicious, but not painfully so. And get off your high horse--currylicious is TOO a word.


Will I buy it again? 

Yes. I am well pleased that I took a more-or-less random stab at a completely unknown part of the food world, and had such a delightful result, with next to no work involved. This is exactly the kind of experience that encourages me to--gasp!--try more new things.

Nina's View

1. Unknown food of unknown flavor and unknown cooking technique.

2. Purchase.

3. Cook.

4. Eat.

5. Enjoy!

6. Repeat.

I cannot tell you how it thrills me that Bob actively derives pleasure from this. Food is fun!

Trader Joe's Chicken Breast Medallions With Coconut Red Curry Sauce

It's time for another Coconut Week! Seven days of reviews of Trader Joe's products made from or with coconut. This is Day One. 


I didn't have high hopes for this. Frankly, I had gone into Trader Joe's primarily to buy my regular keep-in-stock items, but with an eye to purchase just about anything I spied that said it had coconut in it (and didn't instantly disgust me), because I needed one more coconut item to fill out Coconut Week. This was the first such product I found, so into the basket it went.

Surprise! It's wonderful! Even just heating it in the microwave, a lovely blend of coconut and curry aromas filled the air in my apartment. I had it over some brown rice, and loved every bite of it. It's pitched at just the right degree of spiciness for my taste, which I'm sure many (most?) people would think is too mild. The coconut is prominent without being overpowering. The chicken chunks were tender and delicious. The sauce was thick enough to scoop up with some rice even without a piece of chicken--i.e., not runny at all. And it was heat-and-serve easy!

I think it's a little short of being so outstanding that it goes on my Top Ten list. But just the fact that I had to stop to ponder that question for a while is a high recommendation.

Note: The sauce apparently contains a small amount of anchovies and shrimp. I couldn't taste either one, but if you avoid these things for whatever reason, take note.


Will I buy it again? 

Yes. But once again I'm held back by my desire to continue a gradual reduction in my consumption of all meats, including poultry (though I consider this less urgent than it is for beef and pork). That is going to be the limiting factor in how often I choose to take this home.

As I have said with the Southwestern Chicken Poppers and other chicken products, I really wish that TJ's would either replace the chicken with its quite good fake chicken, or make two versions: A chicken one and a vegan one (as they do for the tikka masala). Even better, the ideal solution would be to sell the coconut-curry sauce as a stand-alone item in a jar, and let people add their own preferred protein source. If they did that, I would keep one on my shelves at all times, and I think it would then crack my Top Ten list.

Are you listening, Trader Joe's?

Roundup

This is my weekly compilation of news and other links related to Trader Joe's.


Apparently, you can hatch some of Trader Joe's eggs 

Trader Joe's dinners for under $4

Price comparison: Trader Joe's and Whole Foods 365

My Trader Joe's faves

Art made with torn Trader Joe's grocery bags

Trader Joe's rap

10 reasons to love Trader Joe's

Pirate Joe's forced to move to new location

My breakup letter with Trader Joe's

Trader Joe's new foods for March

Why Trader Joe's doesn't use social media



Best tweets of the week:

1.

2.

3.

4.

And finally, here's this week's cute cat in a Trader Joe's grocery bag:

Trader Joe's Multigrain Country Bread

A friend emailed me to suggest that I try this, which is a staple in his family. So of course I did. He's right--it's very good. It feels substantial without being heavy. It works well as both toast and in sandwiches, which isn't true of all breads. The slices are nice and uniform, to keep my inner OCD happy. Overall, it's one of the best general-purpose Trader Joe's breads I've tried (and I've had a lot of them now).


Will I buy it again? 

Yep. It's going into the regular rotation.

Trader Joe's Sweet Plantain Chips

Brand-new product; see the company's introduction to it here. $1.79 per bag.

I've had plantain chips before, and they did nothing for me--like eating cardboard. These, though, are different. They're much, much sweeter than any I've had before, despite having no sweeteners added. They also taste more like bananas than others I've eaten. To make things even better, they've got the texture nailed--fried just crispy enough.

Bottom line: Excellent. Nina and I nommed our way through almost the whole bag before dinner even started.


Will I buy it again? 

Yes.

Trader Joe's Tomato Tiropita Triangles

Yet another new product; see Trader Joe's description of it here.

The filo dough turned out excellent--flaky and delicious. But the goodness pretty much ends there. The filling is completely dominated by cheese, with the tomato and olive components relegated to minor supporting roles. I'm not a fan of olives, so I'm OK with that part being subdued. But more tangy sweetness from good tomatoes would have made this a much more successful product.


Will I buy it again? 

No. Nina and I each ate two of these, but the last four in the package went into the trash, as neither of us wanted to have more of them.

Trader Joe's Natural Turkey Summer Sausage

This is the 12th new TJ's product in a row we've featured (if you don't count the insertion of the post about dried bananas as a prelude to the one about the new baby bananas). TJ's description of this item can be found here.

I used to eat summer sausage a lot when I was a teenager. Oscar Mayer brand, to be exact. That plus a slice of cheese made for one of my favorite easy sandwiches. But it's now been probably 30 years since I had any.

This, obviously, is more snack/cracker size than sandwich size. As for taste, it's not as peppery as I remember Oscar Mayer's being. In fact, I'd go so far as to say this is just too bland. It's probably that damn TJ's Blandification Committee at work again. It's not terrible by any means, but it's uninteresting.


Will I buy it again?

Though I've purchased a good number of TJ's products that have meat or poultry as one ingredient (soups, pot pies, and so on), I think this is the first time I've bought something there that is basically just meat. (Edit: On rereading, I realize that that's not quite true. The first time I went there when the store opened, I bought a pound of ground beef and a steak.) My shopping and eating habits have shifted so far from where they were seven years ago (when I started dating a vegetarian, and as a result started thinking a lot more about my diet) that it felt quite profoundly strange to put this in my basket, and even stranger to open and cut into it. Had it been the traditional pork-based summer sausage, I would have given it a pass, but I think poultry is less problematic than pork and beef in terms of health effects, environmental effects, and ethics, so I'm less stringent about cutting it out of my life than those items. Still, buying and eating a hunk of meat has become sufficiently uncomfortable for me that I wouldn't buy this again even if I loved it.