Scabetty is one of the several recipe-in-a-box start-ups, which popped up in Hyderabad towards the later half of 2015. It offers over twenty dishes, which are called boxes, including starters, main courses, and desserts. Each box comes with all the necessary ingredients in just the right quantity, along with a simple set of instructions that almost anyone should be able to follow. These boxes can be ordered from the Scabetty website, and are home delivered all over Hyderabad.
Scabetty recently added three salad boxes targeted at the health conscious. I was invited to a preview session along with a few other food bloggers. The salad that I prepared was Roasted Pepper and Quinoa salad, which came with pre-cooked quinoa, roasted pepper, cherry tomatoes, pine nuts, baby spinach, vinaigrette dressing, and feta cheese. There was no cooking involved in this one and preparing the salad was as simple as cutting some of the ingredients and mixing them up. Feta Cheese and Pine Nuts are two ingredients that I absolutely love, so it was hardly surprising that I enjoyed the salad.
Next up was Smoked paprika chicken salad box which came with pre-marinated chicken breast with sweet smoked paprika, haricot beans, cherry tomatoes, yellow peppers and basil. This dish took around ten minutes to assemble, with the bulk of the time being consumed in cooking the chicken. Although I would have preferred the pita bits to be more crunchy, I enjoyed the overall combination. The bird-eyed chillies packed a real punch, and should be used with caution if you can’t tolerate heat.
My favourite salad of the night was the Paneer, Courgette and Chickpeas box. Ingredients for this salad included cottage cheese, arugala, grated courgette, chickpeas, pomegranate, and pomegranate molasseses dressing. The sweet and sour Pomegranate Mollasses dressing that came with this salad was simply amazing. The paneer didn’t add much to the dish, but the dressing worked wonders with the pomegranate, courgette, and chikpeas. This salad was simply addictive.
The portion sizes are quite generous and can act as a meal for one. If you are using salads as a part of a multi-course meal, then each box should be good for three to four people. Each salad contains between 270 and 370 calories, which makes them great for anyone looking to shed calories. However, Scabetty often uses ingredients that aren’t locally available, and that means that the boxes don’t exactly come cheap. The Roasted Pepper and Quinoa salad box is priced four hundred bucks, while the other salads cost three hundred. The prices are comparable to that of a restaurant, and without a subscription service, it’s expensive to use Scabetty too frequently. But, it’s pretty great for the days when you are tired and don’t have the time or energy to cook or eat out.
