Füdi Meals #1: Jerk Chicken with Pearl Barley and Kale

I am grateful to share with you another complimentary meal that consists of a five-series food blog!  Are you ready, stenoodie fans?!

Füdi Canada contacted me in mid-December about this exclusive Füdi opportunity and Füdi Contest! Füdi Canada provides a “high-end frozen dinner that is currently available at Whole Foods across the province, as well as select Foodland locations.  Füdi’s goal is to provide Canadians with easy-to-prepare meals that are nutritious, tasty, and hyper-convenient without compromising on the quality of ingredients used!”

Entire line of Füdi dinners (currently 5 flavours)

They had delivered me five packages of their current entire line of Füdi frozen dinners.  They came in five flavours:  Jerk Chicken, Chicken Cacciatora, Cajun, Tandoori, and Southwest Chicken!

Each frozen package includes a “quarter chicken (thigh and leg, deboned and skinned) sourced from Beretta Farms so it’s local, free-range, as well as antibiotic and hormone free; 1/4 cup of pearl barley sourced from Ottawa Valley Grain Products; and 1 cup of uncooked, Ontario (when available) organic baby kale that is field frozen and sourced from AJ Lanzarotta.”

Creator of Füdi Canada

“The chicken and barley are cooked sous-vide to lock in moisture and flavour as well as maintain the highest level of quality since sous-vide virtually eliminates the risks of contamination common with other packaged food products.  The meals go from freezer to plate in 15 minutes and require just a few minutes in a pot of boiling water to reheat (for the chicken and barley) and cook (for the kale) — So easy!”

The contest that they are currently hosting for all foodies and food bloggers who have this opportunity of sampling these dinner meals have a chance to test and photograph the them and send them in to put to a public vote.  Once the votes are counted, the submission that receives the most votes wins a month’s supply of Füdi products (30 Füdi dinners and 6 Füdi Spice Blends, all of which typically costs over $500 in-store).

For my part, not only will I be sending in my photographs of the Füdi dinners, but I will also be blogging each dinner package (that’s just something I want to do).  Hence, without further ado, let’s blog about the first package that I tried!

I tried the Jerk Chicken with Pearl Barley and Kale!  (I actually cooked this together with the Chicken Cacciatora package, but that dinner will be in a separate post).

What is inside one package:
quarter chicken (thigh and leg, deboned and skinned), 1/4 cup of pearl barley, 1 cup of uncooked organic baby kale

It was extremely easy to make this dinner.  All you have to do is:  Take the package from the freezer, open it, set the two pouches filled with the chicken and kale aside, bring a medium pot of water to boil, throw the two pouches into the boiling water, wait 15-17 minutes, and then voila!  You can carefully cut open the steamed pouches and display it on a plate and start eating!  You don’t have to cook anything!  You just need a pot of boiling water to heat everything up.

Shown here are actually two packages (the other is the Chicken Cacciatora)

The portion is perfect for one person as the pearl barley, kale, and chicken will surely fill you up.  The Jerk Chicken smelled amazing!  I had to be careful when I was opening up the pouch because the steam from the bag is very, very hot!

The texture of the chicken was pretty decent considering that it was heated from frozen meat.  The jerk flavour was a tad spicy too!  The pearl barley were in little grains that you have to carefully chew through.  I didn’t like the kale so much because I found that it was extremely chewy and didn’t taste very good.

Here are my pictures of the dish!  (Still practicing!)

Who knew frozen dinners could look and taste so good!

A very healthy alternative if you must eat frozen dinners. No need for microwave!

An obvious advertising shot 😛

Come back to read my review of the Chicken Cacciatora Füdi Meal tomorrow! 🙂

FTC Disclaimer:  Although Füdi Canada reached out and provided me with a complimentary package for review and to participate in a contest, the opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of the company.