Tesco Food Review

Reviewed by Dorothy White

We recently had a dinner party for 4 people ~ 3 adults and 1 child.  I decided to get all the food from my local Tesco. I decided to cook honey roast gammon with roast potatoes, Yorkshire puddings and vegetables.

I chose a Tesco smoked gammon joint which weighed 2.2kg, it was slightly larger than those priced at £7 but looked much leaner.  I decided to cut it in half to reduce the cooking time, and soaked both pieces in cold water for the afternoon.

I boiled the pieces of gammon in two separate pans, starting them off in cold water to which I had added a dessert spoon of dark brown sugar, for approximately 45 minutes.

I removed each piece of gammon from the pan and cut off the rind.  I then used a sharp knife to score diamond shapes in the remaining fat.  I placed each piece of gammon on a piece of foil and studded it with cloves and smothered it with honey.  I closed the foil and placed both pieces of gammon in the oven at gas mark 7 for approximately 40 minutes, but about 15 minutes before the end of cooking time I opened up the foil to brown and crisp the fat.

Meanwhile I put the Tesco frozen roast potatoes at the top of the oven and the Tesco vegetables in pans ready to boil.  I made up the white sauce with milk and added grated cheese to make a quick and easy cheese sauce.

At the last minute I put the frozen Tesco Yorkshire puddings in the oven for 4 minutes, and added boiling water to the Tesco market value gravy..

For dessert there was strawberry cheesecake or mince pies.

It was such an easy meal to prepare and was on the table at 7.15pm even though I didn’t finish work until after 5pm.

The gammon was delicious, not at all salty but had a hint of cloves and honey, I put Dijon Mustard on the table to have with it if required.

The Tesco baby carrots were nicely flavoured and tender as were the Tesco garden peas.

My only concern was with the Tesco broccoli and cauliflower mix, although there were some reasonable sized florets in the packet, there were also quite a few very small ones, something I wasn’t expecting.  I chose the reasonable sized pieces to cook and they were very nice.

The Tesco roast potatoes were very crispy and tasty with plenty in the packet. The Tesco Yorkshire puddings were very tasty and went down very well, very morish, just wanted one more.   They were very crispy tasting and convenient.  I had originally hoped to get the special roast potatoes with goose fat but couldn’t find any.

Adding the cheese to the white sauce took a lot of work out of making a cheese sauce from scratch and was very much enjoyed.

The gravy was so easy to make and had a lovely flavour, tasted as nice as far more expensive gravy I have purchased in the past. When we ran out I quickly made more!

Although personally I do not like strawberry cheesecake it was much enjoyed by my daughter and 8 year old granddaughter, although she prefers it with the strawberries removed ~ strange child!

The mince pies had lovelycrumbly pastry and plenty of fruity, tasty filling

I can thoroughly recommend using ready prepared frozen products as they take a lot of the hard work out of food preparation and taste delicious, sometimes even better than homemade!

I spent under £20 on Tesco’s own brand foods and diet cola and it all made for a very tasty (and good value) family dinner.