Heat Me, Eat Me: Doner Meat & Chips

The packaging-to-food ratio here is ridiculous – a great huge box that takes up most of your student freezer shelf. Inside the box is a tray, wrapped in plastic. Inside the tray, there are a handful of chips – also wrapped in plastic. It felt like the world’s worst pass-the-parcel game.

The chips rest on a shallow bed of slivery doner slices. A sachet of chilli sauce looks like it’s been accidentally dropped in.

The prep

For a guilty pleasure food most associated with the drunk 3am time slot just before returning from a night out, you’d expect it to be a “throw in the microwave, heat and eat” kind of situation. It’s not.

You have to unwrap all the various bits of plastic (thankfully the chips themselves don’t come individually sealed, but I was beginning to wonder…!) and then “arrange” your items on a place. Halfway through cooking, you have to “arrange” the meat too.

The frozen chilli sachet was completely left out of the instructions, apart from the ambitious instruction of pouring the sauce over the food when done. I decided I’d better not microwave the sachet itself and have plastic melting over my meat, so I kept it separate and put it in a cup of boiling water to defrost. Hardly zap-and-eat kind of instructions.

The result

The chips are hard as if they’re undercooked, but still manage to be soggy on the outside.

The doner meat is greasy – you’ll have to wash your hands several times in the cooking process as you ‘arrange the meat on top of the chips. It tastes of very little, and has a gritty texture in places. It also dries out on the ends.

Chilli sauce at least makes it a bit interesting and cuts through the fat, but it’s quite sour and watery.

Verdict

I wasn’t expecting cordon bleu, but I was expecting something simpler to cook and a bit more sizeable given the size of the box.

We’re living in a post “Blue Planet documentary” world, and the amount of packaging for such a meagre portion is really unforgivable.

It was edible, so it manages to stave off the infamous zero star rating (that honour remains solely with Fray Bentos Meatballs in Gravy at this time). But it doesn’t try hard to get above the 1 star rating I bestow upon it.