British Pie Week - Day Seven

The final day of British Pie Week aimed to cap off a fine week of pie consumption for Pierateer RAS by also celebrating National Butchers Week, which happened to coincide with British Pie Week (4^th to 10^th March 2013). Having already picked up a pork pie from his local butchers, Berry Bros in Selly Oak (Birmingham), he was set to give the local produce a rating. We’ve no doubt all heard about the various controversies in the news about supermarket meat produce not always being what it was labelled as, so I was assured to get straight to the source (or at least as close as possible!) buy going to my local butchers for pie, who informed me that it was a local farm seller who produced the pork pies they sold.

However before I review, let me just point out that the final couple of Morrisons Apple Pies went down a treat on Sunday, having one for breakfast and then another to celebrate the end of a fantastic Yonex All England Badminton Championships in Birmingham, hosted once again by Badminton England.

PIE REVIEW:
Have a butchers at this: Would it be a Berry good pie?

Going to your local butchers, you hope to have a bit more confidence in getting exactly what it says on the tin, or in the case of this pork pie from Berry Bros in Selly Oak, exactly what is says on the sticker! Unfortunately it didn’t have anything on the sticker, but I was assured this was a locally sourced pork pie from a farmer near the Birmingham area.

The pork pie itself was golden brown, a little soft pastry-wise in places but still nice and fresh. The meat was on the whole very nice, not too grisly but a tad spicy (certainly left a bit of a kick after eating it, unlike some other pork pies I have tried recently). There was also certainly a layer of jelly around the cured meat in the pie, which I wasn’t too fond of but I recognise some pork pie fans would have enjoyed. All in all, a nice and fresh pie option from Berry Bros, but just a shame that they don’t sell meat-in-gravy pies too. I’m Berry disappointed as their pork pies are nice!

Berry Bros Butchers Pork Pie
Score: 4.0/7 (RAS)

So there we have it for Pierateer RAS: seven days, twenty pies and a whole lot of pastry boosted calories! Still, it was worth every second of it! More reviews to come, but for now, I hope everyone had a great British Pie Week and look forward to reviewing more next March!

RAS Pie Count Day Seven: 3
RAS BPW Total: 20

SJL started day seven with another Co-op Apple Pie and a cup of tea for pre-breakfast. A trip to Waitrose the day before meant lunch was planned. A Waitrose Essentials Beef & Onion pie in the same shallow shape the same as the 50p Asda ones reviewed on Day Three and Day Five. This pie cost a fair bit more at 89p but this meant that it contained a whopping 20% meat. The soft puff pastry was very much the same as the Asda ones. The extra meat certainly made a difference and the filling was more noticeable, but not much more. It didn't justify it's extra price tag and so sadly this pie will be left languishing in the bottom of the pie rate rankings. Not bad, but not great for the price and certainly not recommended to bother buying if at all possible. It tasted very similar to a Pukka Pie only not as good. It is interesting but not perhaps surprising to note that the Waitrose cheapest range is more expensive than the Asda standard range and also slightly better.

Later in the day to celebrate the end of British pie week SJL embarked on some pie baking. This time he opted for a much more normal type of pie in the form of a chicken and chorizo pie. The technique adopted was to boil the whole chicken for some hour and half with some onion, celery and seasoning. This made the meat nice and soft and also provided some stock for the filling. The stock was mixed with some fried chorizo and white sauce and a pie filling was born. Gluten free pastry was made especially for the pie. While this tends to be more crumbly and the texture isn't quite as good the taste is fine and the pastry did a fine job of containing the filling. All in all we were quite happy with this pie and the time put into it's preparation was worth it. There was also plenty of pie left over to ensure that while British Pie Week might have come to an end the pie consumption certainly has not.

Posted by The Pierateers at 23:57

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Labels: beef, britishpieweek, butchers, homemade, onion, pork, waitrose