7 Days of M&S Healthy Dinners: Day 3

Count On Us Spicy Chicken Tostada

Please note: this post is going to be without photographs, as I forgot to take them in all the excitement of some guy blowing his car up outside our house..!  This is Friday's dinner.

First Impressions

When choosing this item, it was an even toss-up between this one, and the spicy beef variety.  In the end, I just flipped a coin and came out with the chicken variety.  I've had tostada before, at the Mexican restaurant Chimi Changa, but never outside of that environment, so I figured it would be interesting to see how they compare.
The packaging, while a complete pain in the butt layout-wise when stacking products, is wholly practical for this type of food, as a tostada is a flat tortilla piled with toppings - it is only about 10mm tall.  Viewing the product through the film, it looked very similar to the one I had in Chimi, all be it a bit smaller and slightly less generous with the toppings.  It did, however, look very appealing and colourful, and to be honest I wasn't expecting some kind of monster serving after my experience with the Ragu on Thursday.
That being said, I didn't end up making myself a side, as I wasn't sure what would go with such a meal, and instead I treated myself with M&S Millionaire Shortbread ice cream afterwards!
To cook this product you have to remove the entire thing from the packaging and put it onto a baking tray.  First off, it was incredibly fiddly.  The tortilla is floppy and soft by nature, meaning it had no rigidity to keep shape while being moved from one place to the other.  Also, the toppings kept moving about, meaning that once the tortilla was in place, I had to rearrange the toppings to be more even on the surface of the tortilla.  In the end, I literally just did tipped the tray up slightly and slid the tortilla into position as quickly as I could.
Secondly, I do note agree with the use of the baking tray, but that is simply because I have discovered the glory of the chip tray.  A chip tray is essentially a twine-like woven sheet, like a small net that you get oranges in, but firmer and heatproof.  They are designed to allow the air to circulate around the chips, meaning that you don't have to turn them over at all and that the chips are evenly crispy all over.  It's a wonderful invention and I chose to use this instead of a tray.  In my experience, trays tend to overcook the base of things, and with something as delicate as a tortilla, I decided it wasn't worth the risk.  if you don't have a chip tray, you can get them from Wilkinsons or sometimes B&M.

Taste Test

Sadly, right at the end of the cooking time, I was distracted by the man who blew up his car outside next door.  This meant that I had to get the tostada out of the oven so that it didn't burn, and then leave it covered for about half an hour or more while I checked that a) nobody was hurt, b) the police had been called and c) the police had all the information they needed.  By the time I got around to eating my dinner, it was pretty much cold.  I have a feeling that I would have enjoyed it much more if it were fresh and hot.
The tortilla had started out crisp, but given the extended amount of time it had been left amidst the chaos, it had turned soggy.  Still, a tortilla is a tortilla, and I still managed to get a little enjoyment out of it.  The chicken was still juicy, though cold, and the rest of the toppings managed to maintain their flavour pretty well given the fact that they too were frigid.  The whole meal had a vaguely Mexican flavour to it, but I was disappointed by how little there was on the actual tostada.  I don't feel that there was enough cheese on top, as I could barely taste any of it, and parts of the tostada were very bare.  The sauce on top also seemed to reduce in consistency during cooking, which considering it was quite thin anyway, was a disappointment for me.  I was also glad I had decided on the dessert of ice cream, as I was still hungry once it was done, and I am beginning to wonder what kind of Mexican sides would go well with a tostada.
However, I found I couldn't enjoy this meal, as I was too hungry and the food was too cold for me to care.  I feel that perhaps, I should give this one another try at a later date, given that my experience was interrupted by an idiot who clearly doesn't read the warning labels on his air freshener.

Overall Rating

Inconclusive Result

The distraction cause the food to go cold and I found I could not bring myself to actually care by the time I got round to eating it.  I will try this again at a later date and review my ratings then.