Saffron Fix is now Global Belly and has expanded their offerings to include Thai! Global Belly brings you fresh, portioned meal ingredients from your chosen cuisine (Indian or Thai), for as low as $54.95 per week. The addition of Thai seems like a natural fit with their existing Indian repertoire, as both cuisines have a plethora of one-pot main courses that pack huge flavor.
Each meal-kit box includes all the fresh ingredients like vegetables and proteins, as well as spices and noodles, bread, or rice. Some even have fresh cheese — the ingredients and accompaniments depend on the dish, but you always get everything needed, other than water, oil, and salt. It also includes easy-to-follow recipe cards to cook delicious recipes in ~30 minutes. Each recipe feeds 2 people comfortably.
Everything arrived bagged by meal and packed in insulating bubble wrap. It comes surrounded with ice and stays nice and cool.
For this week, we chose the Thai version of the kit.
DEAL: You can get $25 off your first order with coupon code WELCOME25.
There’s a card that introduces us to Southern Thailand. It includes some beautiful sights, the famous Full Moon Party, and their culinary delights! The bit of added cultural education is a fun addition that moves the box from simple meal kit toward more of a cultural experience.
Another card puts the spotlight on turmeric, a spice that comes from the turmeric plant and has a warm, bitter taste. It’s frequently used to flavor or color curry powder, mustard, butter, and cheese.
They also shared the health benefits of turmeric and other fun facts about it. Turmeric is HUGE in Indian cuisine, and it is now becoming trendy in the west, too.
There’s an instruction card for each recipe, complete with an ingredients list and basic nutrition and prep info. The dishes look amazing in the photos, and the pics got us excited to get cooking!
The step-by-step instructions are accompanied by photos, so they’re easier to understand and to follow. They list out any equipment or ingredients needed from home, detail pre-cooking prep like washing and chopping, and even offer some tips for making the dish your own. As was the case with Saffron Fix, they give guidance on adjusting the heat level to fit your tolerance.
Everything in my box!
The meals are packed separately, each in its own bag. We had one dish with chicken, and one vegetarian dish.
Massaman Curry With Sweet Potato 40 minutes, 460 calories per serving
This flavorful vegan massaman curry is composed of bamboo shoots, bell peppers, and tender sweet potato chunks simmered in a Thai-spiced coconut curry sauce. The enticing smell of curry backed by the perfect amount of spiciness is very common in Thailand. It’s a bit creamy too! Served with jasmine rice, which was also included in our package, this warmed up our bellies and made a great meal for two. I loved the layering of flavors and textures, and I found this dish to be very addictive. Prep was very easy, with everything but the rice cooking in the same pot.
Pad See Ew With Chicken 30 minutes, 510 calories per serving
Pad See Ew is a popular Thai dish made with stir-fried fresh rice noodle and chicken seasoned with flavorful soy sauce. It’s salty, balanced with a touch of sourness, and a wonderful chargrilled flavor. For this recipe, our box was missing the fish sauce and Thai bird chili powder. It was because our items were sent separately, but this shouldn’t be the case if you’re a regular subscriber. Anyway, we had some fish sauce at home and we just replaced the spice with another chili. I think we got close to the intended flavor of the dish, and it was really delicious! We added a couple of fried eggs, as suggested by the instructions. I was very pleased with the texture of this dish — the chicken was tender, the noodles weren’t too soft, and the Chinese broccoli wasn’t tough like I had expected. The dish was very easy to make, too!
Saffron Fix is now Global Belly! I’m glad to see their offerings expanding, it just means that we now have more Asian dishes to try and taste, even as we’re half a world away. All the goods arrived fresh, and both recipes we received in this box are easy to follow. I also like how they included interesting trivia about the particular region where the recipes came from, it made the whole box more than just food — it’s a cultural experience.
What do you think of this month’s recipes?
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