Chimasu Asian Snack box review & giveaway

I always love the surprise of what I may find in a subscription box. And we’re definitely partial to a snack here, so I was looking forward to my free Chimasu box of Asian Snacks arriving. Beyond prawn crackers, I have to admit that I am rather ignorant regarding types of Asian snacks. So I took a sneak peak at the Chimasu website in advance, where a familiar brand with a twist caught my eye, a Wasabi KitKat. I’ve heard of Wasabi but have no idea what it tastes like. Would there be one of those in my box?

When it arrived, I found a huge range of items inside. More than I was expecting for the size of the parcel, but most were quite small, meaning more variety could be included, which I thought was an excellent idea.

So the contents were as follows…

Pu Erh Tea
Jasmine Tea (2)
Sesame Pastry (2)
Roasted Rolled Crispy Seaweed (2)
Shrimp Flavour Yummy Flakes
HiChew Green Apple
HiChew Strawberry
Wasabi Peas
Rice Cracker (2)
Kabaya Milk Chocolate Biscuit (4 panda)
Lotte Rakuten bear cake (9 Koala biscuits)
Korean Shin Ramyun Noodle Soup
Nissan Demae Ramen
Orion Seaweed Flavour Korepab Snack
Banana Kick Snack

Pu Erh Tea
This is not a type of tea that I had heard of so I looked it up on Wikipedia. Just one tea bag, so I served it in traditional Chinese tea cups, so that two of us could try it. A pleasant flavour.

Jasmine Tea
I always order Jasmine Tea whenever I go to a Chinese restaurant and this Ten Ren brand tasted just as good as any other Jasmine Tea.

Sesame Pastry
This was also labelled as Silang Crispy Pastries with Nutlet. Allergy warning, it contains peanut. There were two of these, individually wrapped, each containing a 13g biscuit. Son1 and I loved these. First time I’ve come across black sesame seeds.

Kabaya Milk Chocolate Biscuit
Son2 immediately grabbed this 17g packet when he saw it. Inside were 4 tiny chocolate filled panda biscuits. He did reluctantly let son1 and myself share one of them. We all loved these.

Lotte Rakuten bear cake
Again this appealed to the boys. Inside were 9 milk flavoured tiny koala biscuits, each with a different design koala. One was even wearing glasses. I did have one, whilst the boys quickly ate four each. Good but the pandas were better. According to the website, this 19.5g packet also comes in a mango flavour.

Wasabi Peas
A small 10g packet but any more would have been too much as we found them rather spicy. I had never tried anything wasabi flavour previously and didn’t particularly like this, but son1 enjoyed a few at a time.

Shrimp Flavour Yummy Flakes
A small 5g packet which son1 and I both loved. It had the texture of a Pom Bear snack. We would have liked this in a bigger size.

HiChew Green Apple / HiChew Strawberry
Just two individually wrapped sweets which son2 had his eye on. He did let me cut a sliver off the end of each to test. They are similar to Starburst.

Kameda Seika Soy Sauce Flavoured Rice Crackers
These 16.8g individually wrapped Rice Crackers had the shortest shelf life, with less than 6 weeks. Everything else was dated 2018. Both son1 and I loved these.

Roasted Rolled Crispy Seaweed – Select Rolling Bite spicy flavour
These were labelled as no MSG, low fat and gluten free. We are all seaweed fans but son2 refused to try these as the packaging said they were spicy. Son1 and I both found them reasonably pleasant.

Banana Kick Snack
This was a family size bag and they looked rather like Wotsits and with a similar texture and crunch. But the banana taste was very different. It didn’t particularly appeal to the adults, but the boys loved it.

Orion Seaweed Flavour Korepab Snack
Another pleasant savoury snack all in the shapes of various sea creatures. Tiny and hollow. Plenty in the pack.

Nissan Demae Ramen
This made a tasty sesame flavour noodle soup which son1 and I enjoyed. Just add 500ml boiling water, cook for 3 minutes. Then stir in contents of the flavouring sachet and oil sachet.

Korean Shin Ramyun Noodle Soup
Another simple soup to make. This time add 550ml boiling water, stir in contents of the flavouring sachet and flakes sachet, then cook for 4.5 minutes. However the big difference was that this soup was very spicy indeed. We still liked the noodles but the liquid was too spicy for any of us. The packet is labelled as Gourmet Spicy.

A great varied selection of snacks in my opinion.

You may choose between a month to month subscription at £18 per box or prepaying for 3, 6 or 12 boxes or buying a single box for £20. Prepaying for 3 equates to £17 per box and prepaying for 6 equates to £16.50 per box and prepaying for 12 equates to £16 per box. Very good value in my opinion and it also includes free shipping within the UK. You pay extra for shipping to other countries.

You also get the option to indicate which categories you love (always include), like (sometimes include) or don’t want from the following list of categories. A very useful feature in my opinion.
Biscuits and Cakes
Crisps
Candy
Nuts, Peas and Seeds
Noodles and Soups
Teas
Fruits
Seafood

Plus I have a special offer to share with my readers. £6 off your first Asian Snack Box and a free Japanese Kit Kat when you use coupon code TOKYO444 at checkout.

And I’m hosting a rafflecopter competition to giveaway an Asian Snack box from Chimasu to one lucky winner. This may contain a different selection of products to those featured here, as my review is of what was in the October selection.

a Rafflecopter giveaway – Please click on the link to enter.

And you may see my other giveaways here.

I’d love to hear what is your favourite Asian Snack?

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Disclosure.  This post is a review of a product I was sent for free.  All opinions are my own.

Stir-fry chicken noodle with satay sauce

Although I often cook stir-fry, this is the first time I’ve ever tried making a satay sauce.

Ingredients (serves 4)

225g peanuts
2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion
1 tsp chilli oil
1 tsp brown sugar
1 tbsp soy sauce
400 ml cold water
250g noodles
75g cooked shredded chicken
50g leek
1 large carrot
50g frozen peas
50g frozen sweetcorn

Method

Add 1 tbsp oil to a wok and heat gently.
Add peanuts and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Allow to cool.
Whizz in a blender.
Chop the onion and leek.
Cut the carrot into julienne strips.
Add onion and chilli oil to wok and fry gently for a couple of minutes.
Stir in sugar, soy sauce and water.
Bring to the boil.
Add blended peanuts.
Simmer for about 10 minutes until the sauce has thickened.
Meanwhile cook noodles according to packet instructions.
Add 1 tbsp oil to a frying pan and heat gently.
Add leek and carrot and stir-fry for about 5 minutes.
Add the frozen peas and sweetcorn and chicken.
Continue to stir-fry for about 3 minutes.
Serve noodles topped with stir-fry topped with satay sauce.
Enjoy.

This was a delicious flavour and I shall be making it again.

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Time in my kitchen making summer noodle salads

Britmums have challenged bloggers to tell their kitchen story. And as one of the first 100 to sign upto the challenge, I received a free packet of Fairy Platinum.

I love my kitchen. It is nice and spacious. There are lots of windows so it is bright and sunny at this time of year. Apart from when we’re eating I mostly have it to myself. The boys occasionally join in to bake some cakes, but I usually cook alone. We did buy a tv for the kitchen, but it tends to only get switched on when I’m ironing. I did hope the tv would lure my husband in, so that we could spend more time in the evenings in the kitchen, since I’m conscious that I have terrible posture sitting in an armchair using my laptop in the lounge. I’m sure it would be better for me to sit in the kitchen at the dining table, but I prefer to be sociable in the lounge. I guess the answer would be to squeeze a small settee in somewhere in the kitchen for tv viewing, but although there is empty space, there isn’t an obvious location.

My kitchen

So since Fairy is going to be helping me with the washing up, I’ve decided to tell a cooking story. With the lovely weather we’ve been having recently, I try to avoid heating the kitchen up with the oven too much. So I chose to make 2 noodle salads, also using up some left over raita and sweet and sour sauce. I hate wastage and these were in the fridge, left over from takeaways.

Chicken Noodle Salad

Ingredients (serves 2 adults and 2 children)

220g Noodles
100g Cooked Chicken Strips
150g Carrots
100g Sweet and Sour Sauce
Salt and pepper

Method

Chop the carrots into thin batons.
Bring two saucepans of water to the boil.
Add the noodles to one pan and cook for 3 minutes until soft.
Drain and run under cold water.
Add the carrots to the other pan.
Cook for 3 minutes until al dente.
Drain and run under cold water.
Stir the sauce over the cold noodles in a large dish.
Add the chicken and carrots.
Season with salt and pepper.
Serve and enjoy.

Chicken noodle salad

Egg Noodle Salad

Ingredients (serves 2 adults and 2 children)

220g Noodles
4 Hard boiled eggs
75g Green beans
100g Raita
75g Frozen Sweetcorn
Salt and pepper

Method

Allow the sweetcorn to defrost.
Shell the eggs and cut into quarters.
Top and tail the green beans.
Bring two saucepans of water to the boil.
Add the noodles to one pan and cook for 3 minutes until soft.
Drain and run under cold water.
Add the beans to the other pan.
Cook for 2 minutes until al dente.
Drain and run under cold water.
Stir the raita over the cold noodles in a large dish.
Add the eggs, beans and sweetcorn.
Season with salt and pepper.
Serve and enjoy.

Egg noodle salad

And afterwards the utensils went in the dishwasher along with the Fairy Platinum. I was impressed with the Fairy Platinum. It certainly did a better job than my usual dishwasher powder.

Disclosure. This post mentions a product I was sent for free. All opinions are my own.

This post is an entry for the “My Kitchen Story” Linky Challenge, sponsored by Fairy Platinum

A busy week

I’ve rather neglected my blog this week due to other priorities, the main factor being that I started back to work.  This was after an absence of over 6 months, since son1 was diagnosed with leukaemia on 3rd May.  But son1 is about to move into the maintenance phase of his chemotherapy on Monday, and since his medication will all be orally administered at home, we should be able to get into a more normal routine.  I’m very glad he doesn’t need to have any more lumbar punctures or intravenous drugs.  His blood counts yesterday were finally high enough for chemotherapy to recommence on Monday.  This is 2 weeks later than planned, as his blood counts had been very low following the delayed intensification phase.

It did feel strange being back at work after such a long absence, but everyone was very welcoming and wanting to know how son1 is doing.  But over 1200 emails waiting in my inbox was not quite such a welcome sight.  The boys were already fairly settled in their routine, so it didn’t seem to cause them any issues.

It has meant that we need to have quick simple evening meals, so I’ll share what I made for tea yesterday.

Sausage and noodles

Ingredients (serves 2 adults and 2 children)

1 Mattessons smoked sausage (200g)
2x 108g packets of instant noodles,
100g sweetcorn

Method

Measure out water according to noodle packet instructions into a saucepan.
Add the contents of flavour sachets and bring to the boil.
Add the noodles and cook until liquid is absorbed.
Meanwhile slice the sausage and heat in a wok.
Add the sweetcorn.
Add the noodles.
Serve and enjoy.

Sausage and noodles

And finally here’s a photo of son2 from last weekend dressed as a knight. He went to 2 parties last weekend, one of which was a knights and princesses party. And son1 is going to a party tomorrow.

Son2 made a sword at the party