<i>Do not reheat | chicken curry</i>

Another day, another plastic carton of pre-marinaded chicken in a psychedelic sauce. The trouble with the microwave-led diet is that, just as three-quarters of all life forms on Earth are sea cucumbers, so the vast majority of ready-meals are curries of one form or another. Try the Chinese option if you want, but in the final analysis, it's going to come down to korma versus dhansak in the cook-chill playoffs.

Another day, another plastic carton of pre-marinaded chicken in a psychedelic sauce. The trouble with the microwave-led diet is that, just as three-quarters of all life forms on Earth are sea cucumbers, so the vast majority of ready-meals are curries of one form or another. Try the Chinese option if you want, but in the final analysis, it's going to come down to korma versus dhansak in the cook-chill playoffs.

Salvation came in the form of M&S's Chicken Piri Piri, which is a curry but Portuguese. Throbbing a murderous red and showing off its giant chunks of chilli like prison tattoos, this dish burst out of the oven seething with the promise of total throat damage. For once, the little "hot" icon on the box spoke truly - the sauce reminded me of the creature in Alien and the way its blood ate through the deck of the spaceship. There were crunchy little pearl onions floating in it, too, and the chicken, a walloping 35 per cent, managed to get a firm and carnivore-friendly message through the inferno.

The wimpy Saffron Rice might as well have been grains of polystyrene for all the contribution it made. The moral: if you can't stand the heat, keep ready-made curries out of your kitchen.