Marks & Spencer ‘Simply fuller longer’: Meatball minestrone

What is going ON with Marks & Spencer? Have they got a new chef in town? Somehow, under the guise of trying to make ‘healthy’ foods, they have tapped some really decent cooking. Shhh … they might realise and take it off the shelves.

I very much enjoyed the noodles from this range. Far, far more than I expected. It’s a ready meal, right? It’s going to fail in some areas. But if so, those areas were surprisingly few, and surprisingly small.

Now to test my enthusiasm. ‘Meatball minestrone’. It’s 10g fat, about the same as a packet of crisps, and full of protein (to keep you ‘simply fuller, longer’ - see?).

After the obligatory 3 ½ minute zap, I poked around inside. There are the cannellini beans – an excellent addition to any tomato soup, to my mind. And the meatballs – nearly flavour-neutral but an agreeable textural change. Teeny pasta shells are predictably overcooked, but the cabbage is cut long and thin, almost like noodles, and retains a slight crunch, as do the green bean batons. This looks good. Really quite good.

And it tastes great. Loads of black pepper in here. And something else fragrant. There are – seriously – whole fennel seeds.  Why? They don’t need to be there, they cost something, there’s no profit motive. And nevertheless they are there, and they taste brilliant. Not to everyone’s palate, little bursts of aniseed in your soup, but it is to mine.

And what’s this? MORE flavour? Hold your goddamn horses, now. Cubes of heavily smoked bacon. Herbs. Let’s look at the ingredient list: 

Chicken stock, meatballs, tomatoes, cooked pasta, savoy cabbage, cannelini beans, carrots, onions, red peppers, celery, green beans, tomato puree, cooked smoked bacon, parmesan cheese, garlic puree, cornflour, salt, sugar, basil, olive oil, whole fennel seeds, oregano, cracked black pepper, ground paprika.

No horrible bits and pieces and reconstituted this or powdered that? Something you could actually recreate in your own kitchen.

Final plus point: it comes in a handy pot that is perfect for freezing stock in. Who knows, maybe I’ll make M&S recipe minestrone out of it …

Comments

[Louisa Branch]

Yum...maybe I'll try this one next! Have been tucking in to the cold salady meals for lunch recently (king prawn and salmon, crayfish, lots of other good things)....so tasty and best of all the sauce comes separately so it's ideal for picky people like me!! That said...although it keeps me simply fuller longer it doesn't seem to stop me grazing all afternoon.

[giorgia]

There's definitely something afoot at M&S. I bought the stir fry meal deal last week (noodles + sauce + pre prepared veg for £3) and the pre prepared veg was a revelation - there was real veg in it (sprouting broccoli, sugar snap peas, baby corn and pak choi) instead of the usual cabbage, grated carrot and bean sprout mix that makes stir fry so depressing a concept. The noodles were delicious too and it was great value. Definitely a new chef or 'food concept artist' or whatever wanky name they have nowadays.