Chicken or beef?

When you are thirty thousand feet in the air the choice is usually very simple. Do you want the chicken, beef, fish or vegetarian? Usually it's not even that, but it's your choice, limited though it is. Stuck here on the ground, it all depends what in the freezer and what the rest of the family are likely to eat with you.

Then you (or your darling partner) have to prepare it yourself.

Though we are fortunate to have some pretty decent culinary skills in this house (especially when it comes to my partner) and although I've had some pretty poor meals up in the air recently, if I even felt like eating them at all, I have found myself dreaming of aeroplane meals a bit lately.

Even if they give you a descriptive menu, you are never quite sure exactly what you are going to get when you peel off that foil and take your first look at the hot meal deposited on your tray table. It's not like those frozen supermarket meals with the clear wrap or enticing photos on the box. You just have to trust that it will be good.

One of the better economy class meals - on Thai Airways

Sometimes it's bland, overcooked or simply tastes awful and you hope that you'll be able to grab something much better at your destination. Other times you will be lucky and wish that you could take the meal home.

Today I had the opportunity to do the latter. 

With the dramatic reduction in flights, Gate Gourmet, caterers to airlines such as Qantas, Jetstar and many others both internationally and domestic, is offering a selection of meals to purchase online for a limited time. At A$25 for ten lunch/dinners it is a pretty reasonable deal, though you have to pick them up yourself from their warehouses.

As we have limited freezer space I ordered the ten meal minimum, choosing the meat lunch/dinner over the cheaper vegetarian and breakfast options. You don't know what meals will be in the selection, so it's a bit like the actual experience there.

The packs were as follows:

• Chicken Chasseur with Roast Potato
• Beef Mongolian with Egg Noodle Stirfry
• Beef Rendang and Jasmine Rice
• Lemon Chicken with Fried Rice

Lemon chicken

They are provided frozen, just microwave for five and a half minutes. 

The quantities in each pack are on the small side, like many airline meals these days, and each contains ingredients that I prefer not to eat, but I'm not really complaining. I tried the chicken chasseur for lunch and it was very flavoursome and quite good. I'd be happy with that on a flight.

Chicken chasseur

It still wasn't as good as my wife's lamb stew for dinner tonight.