Not sure about Crawshaw? Have a butchers at this then...

After pie loving friends “The Senei” had very kindly brought a John Crawshaw Butcher’s pie all the way back from Sheffield, it didn’t take me long to stick the pie in the oven and have a butchers at it. One of your standard steak pies, the pastry turned a lovely golden colour upon heating up and I was looking forward to a highly recommended pie. And the fact it was straight from the handmade producer, rather than having been caught up in a mass-produced supermarket chain production, only added to the sense of anticipation as I delved in. Would it be worth the mileage to go back and have a butchers at another flavour? Would the pie be a cut above the rest?


Well firstly, there is no doubting the meatylicious content of this pie – it is full to the brim with very nice meaty chunks. Top quality meat comes as no surprise straight from a butcher. The main downside of this pie is that the pastry was a bit dry and there was not really any gravy – certainly no liquid gravy oozing from the pie as you ate it. This may in part be due to heating a pie straight from the butchers stand, but it is a significant downside to the pie as a whole. While I had the facilities to make some additional gravy to go with the pie as I was at home while eating, this is not an ideal situation to find yourself in. It certainly reduces the ‘grab and go’ appeal of this pie. It was however good to know that I wasn’t lining a large supermarket chain’s pocket with the pie purchase (even if, technically speaking, that’s because I didn’t buy the pie in the first place...but good to know the Senei were ‘going local’ in their purchase). For the butcher’s meaty goodness, it gets a good score.

Score = 5.1/7 (RAS)