I ate a pie, a very big pie, from the Coun-try (Market in Sheffield)

With such a strong recommendation from a friend, I eagerly anticipated the arrival of Mr Senei and the Sheffield Country Market Pie he had picked up for me the previous weekend. It did look very nice from the outside and I quickly put it in my oven to heat it up for my evening meal. I hadn’t previously had a steak and mushroom pie before, so I was anticipating the flavour (which I had only previously encountered in a casserole). What would the Sheffield Country Market pastry add? Would I need to start regularly ordering my pies from Sheffield? Could it live up to the expectations?

Well, the short answer to that is unfortunately “no”. But why, I hear you cry? Well, as sad as it is to say, I unfortunately was left hanging on the pastry front when I came to crack the pie out of its silver foil casing. For what I did not expect, and unfortunately found, was that the silver foil was in fact the base and side of the pie, and not pastry! Having managed to take the lid off the pie, which was quite firmly stuck to the foil on the top (hence the poor, broken condition of the lid in the photo), I was shocked to find no base or side pastry and thus had to scrape the contents of the pie from the foil casing. This was not only time consuming but also meant some of the content was left stuck on the foil, rather than in my stomach. Not ideal! So after that absolute shocker, how did the pie taste?

Well, rest assured pie fans, the Sheffield Country Market did claw back some pride by producing a very fine tasting top-crust pie. The steak was very succulent, the gravy (while slightly lacking in quantity) was very nice and the mushrooms added a distinctive taste even if it was perhaps slightly too mushroomy for my personal preference. The lid, although it did fall apart during removal from the foil tray, was both crisp and tasty. It therefore was quite a top quality pie content, once the lack of proper pastry casing had been factored in.

Upon discussing my disappointment with regards to the pastry situation, I was assured by the purchaser that another pie bought from the Sheffield Country Market at the same time did in fact have a full pie casing (lid, sides and base), which makes me wonder if I was accidentally given a “dud”. However, I can only review what I am given. As such, I can only recommend this pie as a very good top-crust pie and not wholeheartedly commend this as a great pie.

Score: 4.9/7