Takeout Kit is a meal subscription box aimed at helping you explore international food at home.
Each month, Takeout Kit will send along the ingredients to a globally inspired dish that ups the ante on your favorite takeout cuisine. According to Takeout Kit, all of their ingredients have a two-month shelf life, so you can cook your meal right away or wait until you have a free night to indulge.
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This box was sent to us at no cost for review. (Check out the review process post to learn more about how we review boxes.)
The Subscription Box: Takeout Kit Around the World Subscription
The Cost: $25.00 for 1 kit per month, or $48.00 for 2 kits per month. Shipping is free!
The Products: The ingredients you need to make takeout-inspired meals from around the globe.
Ships to: U.S.
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The meal this month is chickpea tikka masala, a vegetarian Indian recipe made from chickpeas and tomato-based sauce. This sheet lists out the items in the box and gives a little background on the dish.
On the flip side, you'll find the recipe along with a little graphic guide to what supplies you'll need (pots, pans, etc.). There's even a little note about how to say the Indian version of "bon appetit"!
Cook Time: 35 minutes
Serves: 3-4
2 Packages (20 oz) Garbanzo Beans from Jyoti Organics - Value $3.80
This is a lot of chickpeas! I like that they're packaged in water (which you have to drain before mixing these into the sauce later on) and sea salt (but not too much). And they're easy to use. Just tear open the package, drain, and voila! I'm used to chickpeas in cans, but I might have to look for packages like these for my cooking in the future.
Muir Glen Organic Crushed Fire Roasted Tomatoes - Value $2.19
I liked that these are fire roasted rather than just plain. I think the roasting adds an extra bit of dimension to the dish.
100% Coconut Milk from Aroy-D, 8.5 fl oz. - Value $1.57
This little box of coconut milk is what gives the dish its creamy consistency. Have your scissors handy to snip the package open!
Pure Indian Foods Grass-Fed and 100% Organic Ghee, 1.1 oz. - Value $2.04
I've never cooked with ghee, which is clarified butter. It's sort of translucent and gritty and scoops easily out of this little jar. I like that this is organic ghee from grass-fed cows. High-quality ingredients mean a tasty, healthy recipe!
There were also some non-branded ingredients in the box. This big bag of rice is one. You have to rinse and drain the rice to get the starch off, but it comes out fragrant, fluffy, and delightful.
Inside these little baggies are perfectly portioned out onions, rice spices (Including a cinnamon stick? Cool!), and a tikka masala spice blend. As part of the recipe, you have to rehydrate the onions by soaking them in water. I feel like drying the onions makes the flavor sharper in a way that makes the onions a bit more bitter than regular usual. This permeated the dish a bit—it wasn't terribly distracting, but if I was to make it again, I might just want to run out and get a fresh onion to try!
Other smaller ingredients came packaged in a little brown takeout container. I see what you did there, Takeout Kit! The little green after-meal refreshers aren't part of the recipe, but they are a typical part of the Indian restaurant experience. I think it's so fun that they came in this box!
When you make the recipe, you're basically cooking the two parts—the rice and the sauce—simultaneously on the stove. The rice was easier to make than I expected. It took just as much time as the recipe suggested to cook! The rest of the process is essentially mixing all of the other ingredients into a big saucepan, then letting it reduce a bit.
This fragrant dish tasted just like the chana masala I've had at Indian restaurants. The rice was fluffy and savory—the perfect complement to the powerfully flavorful sauce. I used all of the chili powder, so this was extra spicy, but the heat was rich and tasty rather than just hot. As I mentioned, the bitterness of the rehydrated onions peeked through the other flavors in the sauce every now and then. I wasn't a huge fan of that, but luckily, everything else tasted so good and had such a pleasant, hearty consistency that it didn't ruin anything.
Verdict: I'm very happy with this Takeout Kit. The recipe only took about a half hour and was easy enough for this amateur cook to whip up. It makes 4 servings (2 of which I've eaten already), and wow do the leftovers taste great (even cold)! That rounds out to be about $6.25 a plate, which is about the same (or less) than I'd usually spend on takeout (maybe of lesser quality). Plus, I walk away with a new recipe I can easily create again.
What do you think of this Takeout Kit dish?
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