Korma in a Can??

Chicken Korma in a very exotic Ziploc container

I usually shy away from ready-made sauces and jarred anything, but I had a coupon for a free bottle of Seeds of Change Korma Sauce and I absolutely had to try it. I've never used canned or jarred sauces before unless really really really busy with teaching, and I have never been too busy to make spaghetti sauce on my own (bleck...Ragu...) so "purchasing" this product was a bit difficult for my "make your own" mentality. It turns out Seeds of Change is a company I can totally get behind, with their eco-friendly way of business and organic distribution of foods. Mass production of simmer sauces aside, they're an Oregon company (does that count as local if I'm in eastern WA??) with a heavy dose of community outreach programs and they seem to coincide with my food belief system: KNOW WHAT YOU EAT.

The directions were simple on the korma sauce: fry up a pound of meat (or veggies, which I might try next time!) and then pour sauce over and simmer. Serve over rice or whatever you happen to feel like serving it with (naan anyone??).

The actual dish came out much like my own version of Chicken Korma, and even though it came from a glass jar, I could actually taste fresh ingredients. Korma is the mildest of curried dishes, and yet I could taste each spice individually--cardomom and saffron were very prominent. The greatest part of it? The cashew flavor of Korma was definitely intact, which is a miraculous feat for a bottled sauce. I'll be doing this again.

Served the dish with some brown basmati rice and leftover naan (I need to post about my Indian feast, don't I??), so this dish minus the naan cost me roughly $.50 since I bought the basmati in bulk at the Moscow Co-op. Gotta love those coupons!!

Seeds of Change offers other Indian simmer sauces, like Jalfrezi and Tikka Masala, but I'm not sure I'm willing to concede culinary defeat to any company, eco-friendly or not. For now let's just say I'm surprised and a bit taken.