Thursday, April 2, 2009

Cluckphrey Chicken Free Patties

While ogling all of the frozen vegetarian food choices in Whole Foods a few weeks ago, I noticed a new "fake chicken" product by Cluckphrey's. It had happy packaging and each patty contained only 120 calories, so I thought I would give this new item a shot. Out of all meat alternatives, my favorites tend to be in the chicken family - like Quorn Gruyere Chick'n cutlets, Morningstar Farms' Roasted Herb Chick'n patties, Yves' Lemon Herb Chicken Skewers... I could go on and on. I've tried almost every product on the market. So I was pretty excited to see this "NEW" item. The other day, I made myself a patty in the microwave for lunch. Because that's my preferred method of cooking. If something doesn't taste good after being cooked in the microwave, it moves to my "do not purchase" list. (Like the Healthy Choice Pumpkin Squash Ravioli that left an awful taste in my mouth...but that's another story.)

Being the calorie-watcher that I am, I tend to eat burgers or patties plain, on a plate. As I started to cut into my patty, my heart sank. It was rock hard! As a person who's ok with crispy foods, I'd normally appreciate that, but not in a fake chicken patty. After sawing through the patty for what seemed like forever - I was really hungry - I sat down to eat it. The taste was very bland and unmemorable. The inside of the patty was stringy and extremely hard to chew. If I hadn't been so hungry, I would have thrown it away. It was really a disappointing lunch. I was going to give another patty a shot, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I threw the rest of the box away. That's a rarity for me. I've forced myself to eat many icky foods in the past just to prevent waste, but I couldn't bear to eat another morsel of these awful things.

3 comments:

  1. That's too bad. I just bought the baked not fried patties and had the complete opposite experience. Tasty, moist, not stringy at all. Perhaps it as the preparation ( I pan fried in olive oil and put it in the toaster oven) or they changed the formulation.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I microwaved and mine was tasty and moist. You have to be careful not to overdo it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. these cluckphrey patties are awesome. so delectable and the texture is like real chicken. quorn is the nastiest tasting thing but yves is pretty good and vegans should NOT trust morningstar. thanks for your review though because i know to keep that in mind while reading your other posts. we have opposite tastes so if you say something tastes good i can assume it doesn't. but like the other comment said if you overcook it it will lose it's flavor and the texture won't be right. i did that a couple times which was good because it got me over my addiction for cluckphrey.

    ReplyDelete