Tesco Finest Limited Edition Honey Sriracha Flavour Hand Cooked Crisps

Here’s a packet of crisps from the Tesco Finest range, provided by the Ski Instructor and the Farmer’s Daughter, together with a tub of sour cream and chive dip. Delicious.

But the dip was so good it quite got in the way of a serious appreciation of this Limited Edition crisp flavour. So I had to abandon it. Nice crisp, not too large but a rich colour, nice crunch and a good kick of heat to the sriracha flavour. Very nice, however, I doubt this will ever become a regular flavour. Pity. I think it’s a whole lot nicer than all those sweet chili crisps that are so common. I can’t say I approve much of any of them.

I think the Ski Instructor was amused that I didn’t recognise the flavour. But I have never tried honey sriracha flavour anything before. So how could I? And actually, how can I tell if this is a genuine sriracha flavour at all? You will have to find out for yourself.

Tesco Salted Caramel Party Mix

Hmm…. I thought this Party Mix from Tesco might be worth a try, and it kind of was, but, er, it is a bit of an odd mixture. Tasty, definitely tasty, but a lot of the bits are broken which is a shame. It’s hard to appreciate a small pretzel if it’s broken into 6 pieces. And the mix is a lot more sweet than it is savoury. I think I would prefer it the other way around.

According to the back of the packet we have maple flavour caramel peanuts with white chocolate with caramel buttons (complicated), milk chocolate buttons, salted caramel toffee popcorn, salted wheat pretzel knots and decorated milk chocolate coated cereal crisps. OK then. Are the shiny pink balls the “decorated milk chocolate coated cereal crisps” do you think? I’m not sure. It really is hard to tell.

All the elements are tasty, but everything is just a bit too sweet. More like what you might serve at a child’s birthday party, not so much to snack on with a glass of wine. Definitely wouldn’t go with a beer.

Yes it’s sweet. No it’s not very salty.

Brets Saveur Yakitori

Notre recette de super craquantes! says the packet, Saveur Yakitori.

Now, I don’t eat Japanese food. There’s far too much fish involved, and I don’t eat cooked fish much less raw. A lot of people assume I must be a vegetarian because I don’t eat fish. How wrong could they be*. So, anyway, I had never heard of yakitori until I came across this packet of crisps from Breton crisp manufacturers Brets. 

So, well, I suppose we are looking for a sort of chicken kebab sort of a taste… and I’m not certain that’s what we got. Quite nice, fairly tasty, definitely not nasty, no, no. But not terribly anything in particular IIRC. To be honest, I’m not sure why a Breton crisp company would think of making a crisp that (sort of) (might) taste of a Japanese chicken kebab. I have seen Chinese restaurants in France but never Japanese***, although a quick google search tells me there are quite a few in Paris. Perhaps they will spread across the country.

However, see my previous post but one, the article from the Guardian. It’s all about how you choose new flavours for your crisps. If you are a multinational crisp manufacturing behemoth, which I am sure most of us are not. I wonder if this flavour will still be available next year.

Obviously the fine crinkle cut of the crisps themselves is lovely. Brets do make an extremely good crinkle.

Not certain I would bother with the Yakitori flavour again, but you might really love this French crisp. 

*Still trying to avoid vegetables. Except potatoes obviously!

*** Since writing up this crisp I have noticed Japanese food appearing all over (the eastern side) of France.

(Not sure that’s my best photo ever. Oh well.)

Brets Saveur Aïoli

A new crisp flavour, aïoli, new to me and the Chef anyway, from Breton crisp manufacturer Brets. And once again it bothers me that they have jettisoned their apostrophe. OK, let’s try not to be picky about that.

A lovely light garlicky tasting crisp. The usual fine crinkle cut that Brets do so well. And they combine beautifully to give a very tasty crisp. I liked them a lot, so did the Chef and the Ski Instructor, but most of them were scoffed by the Farmer’s Daughter. She was 9 months pregnant and used that as an excuse for eating so many crisps, but it seemed to me that she wouldn’t have eaten quite so many if she hadn’t enjoyed them so much. 

Very nice. I would be happy to try these again.

Not much more to say except obviously you find these in France. I cannot remember if we found this packet in the supermarket or at a motorway service station.

Article in The Guardian newspaper about crisp flavours (worth a look)

 

Oh dear! I hadn’t realised I had abandoned all of you crisp fans for so long. There have been so many other things to keep up with. I must write up some more crispy snacks very soon.

But forgive me and do read this article from The Guardian this weekend. It’s very interesting, well, I say very interesting, and of course to me it is…. So let’s say you might find it an interesting read. It’s about crisp flavours.

See what you think.