Thursday 25 June 2015

Save the Macaroni Pie!

The latest headline to hit the world of pie is that the famous macaroni pie is under threat. Gregg's have controversially decided to stop selling this Scottish delicacy saying it is their least popular selling savoury in Scotland. This has prompted a campaign to #savethepie and a online petition. This has even been promoted by some MSPs who are keen to save the macaroni pie.

Whilst I support the petition, we think that Gregg's dropping their Macaroni pie is not necessarily a bad thing. This is yet another reason to visit local bakeries, which will continue to produce macaroni pies. In any case, Gregg's aren't known for consistently producing top quality products and in our experience other versions are better.

Having a look at our pie rankings you might be surprised to see a lack of macaroni pies in the rankings. This is mainly because most of them, like the Gregg's version, do seem to lack a pastry lid which means they don't meet our definition of a proper pie. Also, despite being a cherished savoury product, it is unlikely that any pie containing pasta is going to challenge at the top of our pie rankings. But in order to lend our support to the campaign we thought we needed to find one to review. Fortunately the Bells Macaroni Pie does have a pastry lid and is on offer in Sainsbury's! Here are our thoughts after picking a couple of these up today...




Condition - 3.6 out of 7 - This pie is nothing special to look at, just looking like a standard Scotch pie but with cheese on top. It has the traditional wonky lid of cheaper pies. The sprinkling of cheese on top is the only nice touch.
Colour - 3.4 out of 7 - The cheese and pastry rim had browned up nicely but the rest of the pie was a bit pale.
Cheapness - 3.0 out of 7 - On offer at £1 for 2 (normally £1.25) these pies seem cheap but if you think of how cheap these must be to make (given that they have no meat) they seem quite bad value. Especially given that these version aren't well filled.
Capacity - 1.9 out of 7 - The capacity was pretty poor, at least half of the filling was air which is shocking when the filling is just mac cheese, how expensive is that to make?! Plus there was a pretty small capacity to start with, the lid started to collapse and almost touched the base in places!
Chewiness - 3.2 out of 7 - This pie benefited from having a pastry lid, it kept the filling moist. There was no burnt pasta to make your gums bleed, unlike other versions. The pastry was a little soft so there wasn't really anything to get your teeth into.
Content - 3.3 out of 7 - This pie didn't disappoint on the cheesiness-o-meter. It had a pretty tangy cheesy taste which I guess is what you want with a mac cheese pie! Have to admit though, it isn't my favourite choice of pie filling.
Consistency - 2.6 out of 7 - Soft and stodgy, this is not normally what we look for in a pie but if you are craving a mac cheese pie then you would be disappointed if it was any different! This version is particularly stodgy but does well in some areas.


Macaroni Cheese (Bells)
2.86/7

SJL

Pierate is a pie review website charting a course to find the ultimate pie. For all the pies we have reviewed have a look at our Pie Rankings or find pies of a particular flavour under Pies: Categorised.

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