Fiery Chicken Curry

I'm generally a big fan of the Indian food at Trader Joe's, as that's the section where you can often find some of the more interesting, flavorful, and balanced single-serving frozen meals. Recently, I spotted something new to me that seems to have debuted over the summer - a Goan-inspired fiery chicken curry with a side of turmeric rice ($3.49).

On the chicken side of the meal, you have a few pieces of chicken breast with a sauce made with onions, coconut milk, tomatoes, vinegar, garlic, ghee, tamarind, green chilies, and some other spices and seasonings, and on the rice side, basmati rice with turmeric and spices. I was expecting a mild heat even though it said fiery, but I was wrong. There was quite a decent amount of heat, but unfortunately I found that the heat masked the flavors of the spices and seasonings in the curry. Most of the flavor I got was just acidic tomatoes and heat, so much so that I preemptively took an antacid immediately after eating. With that overpowering heat, whatever seasonings there were in the rice were also impossible to taste, and the whole dish was pretty much "fiery" without any corresponding bump-up in flavor. Just hot for the sake of hot, in my opinion.

Buy again? No. There are so many good Indian dishes in the freezer case (thinking about the lovely korma fish curry, for one) that I don't feel the need to get this again. I love Indian spices, and I'd rather forgo the heat and taste those in a milder dish.