British Pie Week Special - Could the Four Course Dinner Pie revolutionise pie eating?!

For those who aren't aware, while our main focus on Pierate - Pie Reviews is to rate commercially bought pies on the 7 Cs of pie rating, we do have our good friend The Ship's Cook who bakes pie recipes (or reci-pies) and gives them a rating on the 7 Cs of pie rating too! And while this is normally trying and testing commercially available pie recipes from cook books or websites, as a special #PiePledge for this year's British Pie Week she decided to make her own. Let's see how she got on:

My #PiePledge for British Pie Week was to try out a new pie recipe, so I thought I'd invent one all of my own! As British Pie Week drew to a close, I decided to celebrate in style with a four course meal. But of course this wasn't just any four course meal - this was a four course meal in a pie.

 
Yes, you read that correctly, an entire four course meal encased in delicious pastry!

The Recipe:


I did have to ask for some help on this one, as there was a pretty good chance that at least one course would leak into another through my pastry walls. Thanks to my very clever friends, I ended up with four courses that would work separately and together:

Starter - French onion soup
Main - Pork with apple and mushrooms
Pudding - Apple and raisin
Cheese course - Brie and cranberry

I started by making the pastry case and walls, out of shortcrust pastry because I thought that would be quite sturdy. I then blind baked the case while I made the fillings.



The French onion 'soup' was mostly onions slowly cooked in butter with salt, pepper and some flour, and then I made a very thick beef gravy with Worcestershire sauce to make it more like soup. The pork course was pork mince, onions, mushrooms, apple, salt, pepper and some dried herbs. The pudding (apple and raisin) was Bramley apples, raisins, ginger, cinnamon, mixed spice and brown sugar. Finally, the brie and cranberry was just that - layers of brie with cranberry sauce. I topped the whole thing off with a puff pastry lid, marked it with a series of holes to indicate courses 1- 4 and popped it in the oven until it was brown and crispy.

I'm not sure whether it's fair of me to rate my own pie, but I'm going to give it a go anyway - I'm afraid I am a bit biased and I think it was brilliant!


 The Seven Cs:

Colour: 
I'll be honest - this could have been a bit darker. I got over-excited and couldn't wait any longer to try the pie, so I took it out of the oven a bit early...

Consistency:
Mixed success here but mostly good. The onion soup section was lovely and moist, with soft onion and smooth gravy. The pork mince was a bit dry and needed some sauce. The apple and cheese layers were both moist without being too runny.

Capacity:
I packed this pie pretty tightly with filling, but it still felt like I was eating a lot of pastry. Still, if you're going to eat four courses of pie you probably love pastry, and I certainly didn't mind!

Chewiness:
No unpleasant chewiness here - I think I got it right with the mix of ingredients. The fairly large pieces of onion in the soup course meant it wasn't too runny, and the addition of mushrooms to the pork and raisins to the apple added a nice texture. The cheese was soft and gooey, which is exactly how melted cheese should be.

Content:
I'm giving myself (and my friends who helped with the recipe) full marks here. It was a FOUR COURSE MEAL in a pie, and it was absolutely delicious. 

Cheapness:
This isn't the cheapest pie ever because you have to buy quite a lot of different ingredients, but I did end up with loads of leftover fillings that didn't fit into the pie. So those are in the freezer ready for another meal, and I think the cost was worth it for the impact this pie makes.

Condition:
I was really impressed with this pie. I thought it was going to collapse and end up being an onion-pork-apple-and-cheese pie but amazingly the walls stayed solid and the courses stayed separate. I even managed to get a slice of each course onto a plate so you can see them properly!

Overall, my #PiePledge was a definite success. I strongly recommend that you all go and make your own four course meal pies. Try out different ingredients and let us know what you think! Be prepared to be very full though - I know I am!

The Ship's Cook

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Well it was bound to come sooner rather than later, with so many pies being eaten and reviewed amongst a busy schedule for the Pierateers, so 852 days after the first review on www.pierate.co.uk, the world's most popular pie blog, we have reached a milestone #100thPie Review! Thanks to everyone who has supported and encouraged the ridiculously high consumption of pies by the Pierateers (it's a wonder we're not all morbidly obese by now). And as a special treat for you all, the pies that got us up to #100thPie have been reviewed by the three most prolific Pierateers. Here goes:


So to mark the final appearance of one of the Pierateers in West London, the three most prolific reviewers hit Westfield Shopping Centre to give Square Pie a go. You can imagine from the it-does-exactly-what-it-does-on-the-tin title of the company that the pies were all - you guessed it - a square shape. So with three Pierateers and way more than three different flavours of pie on the menu, here are the 98th, 99th and 100th pie reviews on www.pierate.co.uk:

Square Pie: Steak and Cheese = 4.34/7
Reviewed by TJP
The Steak and Cheese pie was a high quality offering and the meat was particularly good, however the reviewer felt it was too salty overall which meant that the reviewer couldn't manage to finish the whole content of the pie. The pie was expensive, but it was evident that they cared about the condition the pie came in.



Square Pie: Chicken Curry = 5.25/7
Reviewed by SJL
It was a nice, vintage pie, with light pastry and a spicy but not too hot filling. It packed a flavoursome punch. The pastry was nice and light, gooey and complemented the contents well. A bit too pricey but one thing I would say is that the pie was certainly filling, so this more than made up for the cost.



Square Pie: Steak and Kidney =5.15/7
Reviewed by RAS
The pastry was nice and light, with no thick side crust which can be the downside of many a pie. The content was very nice, with good chunks of tasty steak. The gravy was also very good, and the mix of content between the steak, kidney and chunks of carrot worked well. The price was quite high but for a filling pie it was worth the expense.



So there you have it - the #100thPie reviewed and here's to the next 100 pie reviews!

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Pie lovers, cover your eyes! I'm about to show you a picture which I think is so shocking it will give you nightmares for weeks. Remember, what is seen cannot be unseen. I'll put it as small thumbnail to give you a taste of the horror - click for the bigger picture if you dare.

Click for full trauma

What you witness above (GRAPHIC CONTENT) is what I call "over-gravy". The lack of solid content (you know, meat) in this pie is, in my opinion, quite overwhelming to the senses. Oh boy...is someone chopping onions?...I...I need a minute...

Good colour

As you can see from the photo above, the pie had taken on a lovely pie colour after cooking. The puff pastry had puffed nicely, although this still has the appearance of a standard mass-produced supermarket pie. It doesn't look very exciting. Upon cracking open the pie, the contents are even more underwhelming. A tidal wave of gravy splurged out of the pie and formed a gravy pool on the plate. To me it seemed the pie was essentially a balloon of gravy which I had just burst.

Pool of gravy - where's the steak?

I actually had to check the packaging again just to ensure this really was meant to be a steak pie, because at the moment this was just a sauce pie. Sure enough, the packet did promise tender chunks of British beef - so where were they? I went steak-fishing in the ocean of sauce, and this is what I found:


Yes, that's it. And bearing in mind that this pie was quite small, I don't think this picture actually quite does justice to how small those small bits of steak are. I'd count only two actual 'chunks' of steak - the remaining three morsels of beef were, in my view, pretty much just a few strands of beef lumped together. To me, this lack of steak and overly-liquid content of the pie was highly underwhelming. The content and capacity of this pie was therefore significantly lacking. The two bits of steak weren't too chewy, although not of great quality, I felt.

The sauce did taste nice - as I've mentioned before in my review of the Higgidy Steak and Stilton pie, I am a fan of stilton.

Overall, I think this is a bit of a shocker here from ASDA. I suppose I should have suspected that much for £1, though.

ASDA Steak and Stilton pie
Score: 2.51/7
TJP

See where this pie ended up in the Pierate Pie Rankings or find other pies of a similar flavour. Make sure you Follow @pierateers and let us know your thoughts!

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Pukka Pies Microwaveable Pie Reviews: Chicken Balti Pie and Potato, Cheese and Onion Pie

The Earth spins on its axis. The sun rises. The moon falls. The sun falls. The moon rises. We're machines of perpetual motion, working hard all day, on and on and on to make money. Pounds. Dollars. Yen. Euros. Rupees. Stock market news wraps itself round shimmering buildings dressed in glass. Suited men and women hurry up escalators, down escalators, up flights of stairs, down flights of stairs. We rush to get to work. We rush to get out of work. We rush to make money, then we rush to spend it.

Pukka Pies' 3 1/2 minute pie

Chicken Balti cross-section

First thing that strikes me is, in my opinion, how dry this pie is. I need to wash each mouthful down with water. The pastry is dry (and deliberately so, I imagine, so that it doesn't go chewy and soggy in the microwave). The lack of gravylicious gravy makes the meat dry, and I find the bottom of the pie has a tinge of burn to it so that the pastry is a bit crispy and...dry. The chicken is actually fine otherwise - not too chewy - but I feel that there's significant compromises being made here so that the pie is microwaveable. I'm really not convinced that a microwaveable pie is what the people want, and certainly not if this is the end result. The balti tasted alright, I suppose. But there wasn't any richness to it, or any smoothness. I wanted to melt away with this pie, into exotic far-away lands. Instead, I had to keep sipping at my glass of water while desperately trying to find some gravy to dip my chips in.

Incidentally, I also found this Pukka Pies 3 and half minute microwaveable Potato, Cheese and Onion pie, also in the frozen section of the supermarket.

Pukka Pies Potato, Cheese and Onion microwaveable pie

The problem with this pie turned out to be quite the opposite to the chicken balti pie reviewed above. The end result of the microwaving process was quite a soggy pie. Examining the base of this specimen, however, it seems that I've managed to burn it. It seems quite odd to me how the crispiness of the pie differs throughout its various sections.

The overall taste of the pie was, in my opinion, quite strong in it's cheese and oniony-ness, to which my personal palate isn't suited. Perhaps you need to give this pie a go if you are a fan of cheese and onion, but since in my household the cheese and onion crisps are the last to go from the multipack, I'm not convinced that fans of cheese and onion do actually exist.

These microwaveable pies are certainly convenient, but I am personally finding it difficult to nail the cooking process. I have had a pie that's too dry, one that was a bit soggy, and one that was really quite soggy. Am I doing something wrong? Or should we all just stick to oven cooking pies in the future?

Pukka Pies Microwaveable Chicken Balti Pie
Score: 3.2/7
TJP

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Pukka Pies Steak and Cheese pie review
There’s no punnage and japery to be found here with this solid performance from Pukka Pies.

Contrary to some other steak and cheese pies we’ve tried (often steak and stilton), the cheese in this pie is actually cheddar. At £1.80, it’s a price you can’t really complain about – and you’ll even find them cheaper than that when they’re on a deal in the supermarkets. So how does it rate? Let’s open up this puff pastry marvel and have a look inside.

My first impression is that there is a bit too much of an air gap to my liking. I like my pies filled to capacity, but this is filled to barely over 50%. It will lose marks there. There a good amount of gravy though, but not too much that it isn’t oozing out over my plate. The puff pastry is very light and flaky; in fact, it’s rather too flaky, I think! It is rather crumbly and creates a bit of a mess over the plate when you try and cut it.
The steak isn’t chewy, and the gravy is of a pleasant consistency albeit a little bit gloopy. Previous steak and cheese pies I’ve tried in the past have been quite overwhelming in their saltiness, but this pie wasn’t. The flavour of the cheddar came through nicely without being too overbearing. It was certainly a pleasant and cheap affair, but the lack of capacity in this pie and the very flaky pastry let it down somewhat.
Pukka Pies Steak and Cheese
5.06/7
TJP

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Pieminister have added 'Lighter Pies' to their range - seemingly in response to a growing consumer trend towards lower calorie options. The range includes "light as a feta" - a butternut squash, feta and sundried tomato pie, "kooky chook" - a free range British chicken, sweet potato, coconut and chilli pie, and "chickalito" - a free range British chicken and dry cured ham pie. But what happens when a "lighter" pie is literally lighter, yet still costs the same?

Pieminister Pie Review - Chickalito

Today, and also previously, under the Pierate knife is the Chickalito pie. It's a pie that is (literally) surrounded with controversy. With these new lighter pies, Pieminister have made the significant decision to do away with the pastry lid, instead opting for a herb and seed crumb topping. For instance, here the chickalito's chicken, ham, courgette and celeriac filling is topped off with a pine nut, sunflower seed, basil and Parmesan crumb.



Pieminister Pie Review - Light as a Feta

Retailing at £3.50, this is at the more premium end of the supermarket pie spectrum, and as already discussed, there is some controversy over pricing this 240g pie the same as a regular 270g pie. I bought this pie from a stall, and spooned only a little gravy on the top.

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Jumbucks - The Kiwi Pie Review

Yet again the Pierateers have gone 'down under', but by no means have lowered their standards, by visiting the Aussie pie makers, Jumbuck's, in Shepherds Bush. Jumbuck's are always worth another visit because they have so many unusual pie flavours to try and with new ones arriving regularly even the Pierateers struggle to keep up. This time I went for a pie called, somewhat controversially for an Aussie pie shop, 'The Kiwi' which was mince and cheese. To me this is emblematic of how the power of pies can really influence people. Here we have two countries, more often caught in rivalry, uniting in spirit to bring a bit of joy encased in pastry to West London. Jumbuck's make their pies in what they call 'Jaffle Irons', which means the pie is encased in a metal mould while being cooked and hence the pastry can't expand so much and is more gooey. This is rather like the pie maker previously reviewed. An upshot of this seems to be that they can get more filling into the pie without risk of it exploding, hence a great capacity. This seems like a good thing although my main bone with it is that the filling taking up this capacity is mostly liquid. Admittedly the gravy was delicious and thick but I felt like I was pretty much drinking this pie rather than eating it. Seriously I bet you could suck it up through a straw and just leave a hollow pastry case. In fact that sounds like a challenge for the Pierateers! Given that the pastry is also gooey, mastication is barely necessary for this pie giving my teeth a well needed break and making it high scoring on the Chewiness-o-meter.

At £2.50 this was slightly pricey for what is essentially a quite small pie. However, for me if I had more of this pie I think the cheesy flavour would have become too much although I enjoyed it in the quantities I had. This pie seemed to have some benefits over the 'Bushranger Deluxe' previously reviewed in that the content wasn't taken up by excessive quantities of mash potato. Jumbuck's have a knack of producing their consistently fab pastry and the condition seems to be great at any time of day. They are open until 1am on Friday and Saturday which gives them a massive plus in my book. As they are open at 7:30am during the week the deliciously unique 'Bacon and Egg' breakfast pie is also well worth a look.

The Kiwi - Meat & Cheese (Jumbucks)
5.06/7

SJL

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Higgidy British Beef, Stilton and Ale pie review

Ah, Higgidy. We had a Higgidy celebration back in July, in aid of our 200th pie review. Back then we tried the Slow Cooked Steak & Red Wine pie, the Sweet Potato, Feta Cheese and Pumpkin Seed pie, and the Chicken Pot Pie with Ham and Leek. Today I'll be reviewing the British Beef, Stilton and Ale pie from the Shoreham-by-Sea company.

Higgidy Beef, Stilton and Ale Pie

The pie has no pastry lid

The lack of pastry lid to this pie is my immediate concern. We strongly favour pies that have a filling totally and wholly encased in pastry (have we ever mentioned that before...?), so the omission of a lid here is guaranteed to lower the final score. This also detracts from the colour of the pie, as I often assess the pastry lid for a rich pine colour. Here, despite cooking the pie for the allotted time at the allotted temperature, I appear to have burnt the potato topping slightly. However, the condition of the pie is good.

The inside of the pie

 Moving on to content now - and this is where this Higgidy offering starts losing points rapidly. As I cut the pie open, I noticed something very strange about the filling. Therefore I separated out all the pastry and mash from the steak, ale and stilton filling, and was very disappointed with what I found. Have a look at this close up of the filling:

This was all the filling

This photograph - apart from a few bits of gravy still stuck to the pastry which I couldn't scrape off - is the entire filling of this pie. I haven't included the potato mash here, because that is technically the lid. As you can see (or perhaps not quite so clearly), the chunks of beef are few and far between. Most of what you see here is gravy with some fibres of beef swimming around in it - there are a couple of small chunks of beef at the top of the photograph. This was extremely disappointing and not what I would expect from a premium beef pie. If you're expecting a big meat feast with this pie, then think again. For those who like their meat pies with meat in, this might not be for you. I could have probably eaten the entire filling here in one large spoonful. Is this a sign that Higgidy isn't ready yet to compete with the big carnivorous players?

That fact aside, the filling was actually delicious. There was definitely a fairly strong taste of stilton. I know for some people this will be a big negative, but for use fans of blue cheese, this is definitely a 'plus' point. Good on you Higgidy! Be brave with the stilton taste! Big flavours. Just need to be bigger on the chunks of meat.


Overall, at about £3.50, this was priced at the premium end of the supermarket pie spectrum - but the quality is clear. The meat (when it was there) was not chewy, and the pastry was great quality. It loses points for no pastry lid, a lack of filling and a lack of beef in the filling, and also it is slightly expensive.

Higgidy British Beef, Stilton and Ale pie
Score: 5.17/7
TJP

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Cracking in to the pie, the pastry gives way nicely - it's crisp and not too soft. There is a slight air gap, however - the pie isn't filled completely to capacity. The pie also isn't particularly big - I think you would certainly want this as part of a meal rather than as a meal in itself. However, I see that the filling is of good quality, with lots of nice chunks of steak and some mushrooms too.


Eating the pastry, I realise this is some of the best pastry I've had. It has a wonderful crispy layer on the outside, and melts in your mouth as you bite into it. The content also tastes delicious. The ale comes through quite strongly, I feel, which personally I like but others made find it too strong. The steak is not chewy. I really like the taste of this pie, and the pastry is excellent. However it is a little let down by its air-gap and its cost (which, at £3.50 a pie I think is maybe a bit on the expensive side for not a particularly big pie).

Colour: 7
Condition: 6.5
Content: 6.2
Capacity: 4
Chewiness: 6.4
Consistency: 6.2
Cheapness: 5

Grumpies of Cornwall Steak and Ale pie
Score: 5.9/7
TJP


Next up is the pie that most intrigues me - the Blue Cheese and Walnut. (Side note: As Matthew over at Food and Geography will no doubt tell you, Stilton is a protected food name so any blue cheese not made in a specific geographical area can't be called Stilton). Just when I was going to suggest that Grumpies use a local Cornish blue cheese, I check their website and see that they do just that! Yes, apparently it's a creamy Cornish blue in this pie - excellent, we love it when companies use local produce.




I must say, this pie is probably rather an acquired taste - I love blue cheese (and I think everyone should!) but I know many people that would run a mile at the sound of blue cheese and walnut. I might also add that the filling also doesn't look 100% appetising, and was a little runny, I felt.

Nonetheless, I would heartily recommend you give this pie a shot. It's delicious and the pastry is excellent.

Colour: 7
Condition: 6.5
Content: 5.2
Capacity: 4
Chewiness: 6.5
Consistency: 5.2
Cheapness: 5

Grumpies of Cornwall Blue Cheese and Walnut Pie
Score: 5.63/7
TJP

And now onto the Chicken, Gammon and Leek.
Similar to the other two pies, this pie is of perfect colour and condition. Can't wait to tuck in!

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The Pie Room Recipe Book by Calum Franklin - Cheesy Dauphinoise & Caramelised Onion Pie Review

British Pie Week is a special time of year and the Pierate virtual pie night seemed a perfect excuse to go for something a bit fancy. One of the best known producers of fancy pies is Calum Franklin who we previously talked to about the beautiful pastry creations he makes for the Holborn Dining Room where he has created a specific 'Pie Room'. Calum has now released a recipe and guide book called 'The Pie Room' and given the time we are spending at home in the lockdown it seemed the perfect thing to try out for British Pie Week. Unfortunately on the Pierate Ship we are more known for eating pies and some of our creations have been far from beautiful so I was a bit concerned about how this would go. I also had to alternate from the recipe in that I made Gluten Free pastry so that Pierateer ALE could also enjoy the pie. We are moving house and had a glut of onions to use so I chose the Cheesy Dauphinoise & Caramelised Onion Pie. It also contained a lot of milk and cream which sounded great to me, being from a dairy farm I do love my milk. This was the first time I had ever made a freestanding pie, I was worried that it might completely fall apart but despite using notoriously crumbly gluten free pastry it only cracked slightly. The pie took absolutely ages to make so I didn't feel motivated to do more than a simple pastry homage to British Pie Week but it was still one of the best looking pies I have ever made (the competition isn't strong though). I slightly got the advice on egg glaze wrong which was a bit disappointing because I was keen to get a pie as deep brown as the ones Calum makes, but it was still a pleasing colour. The pie sliced like a dream which was one of the joys of making this free standing pie, it really still looked like pie when served up on your plate. I made the recipe with half the listed ingredients and Pierateer ALE and I had a quarter each.

But how did it taste? I always find it strange to review a pie I have made but if I give the credit to Calum I think I can say that this was delicious. I can't actually remember having a meat-free pie as tasty as this. It would definitely be worthy of a Pierate Highly Recommended award. There wasn't anything too fancy or difficult to source in the recipe except quite a lot of fresh rosemary and thyme. This, along with the onion and some garlic added a delicious taste to the creamy and cheesy filling. The filling was built in layers which adds to the appearance. Unfortunately with my smaller version I think it was too shallow to fully reveal the layers but it still looked good. It was quite remarkable how moist this pie was despite being free standing. The potato was soft but retained some bite giving it a satisfying consistency. A pie really befitting of British Pie Week and I would certainly recommend it if the meat free content sounds appealing to you.

Cheesy Dauphinoise & Caramelised Onion (The Pie Room Recipe by Calum Franklin)
6.25/7

SJL

P.S. A few words on the making of this pie, I really tried to follow the recipe to the letter which took me ages. Although the ingredients were simple the potato and onion were separately cooked on the hob, then also in the oven before being wrapped in pastry. The final pie then took 45 minutes in the oven. There was also a lot of times where you had to put things in the fridge to chill, it felt complicated to someone not used to these things. I think the pie would fall apart without following all the steps so overall allow plenty of time. I made the filling the day before which worked well. The main thing that I found really amazing was that the filling all held together when I turned it out of a dish on top of the pastry. Then through some miracle my gluten free pastry stayed in one piece as I turned this onto the filling. If making this kind of pie appeals to you I would recommend the book which is well written and includes plenty of general guides, tips and tricks as well as the actual recipes.

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Homemade Cheese Pie Review

Just before Christmas I was – out of the blue - provided with a cheese pie by Rhi, a colleague at work, who had obtained a homemade cheese pie at a work Christmas buffet. Not sure where she got the idea from that I liked pies?!

Anyways, unfortunately the maker of this pie has remained elusive, despite Rhi’s best efforts, but I thought it was a very nice homemade pie and worthy of review. While it won’t make it onto the pie rankings due to not being a commercially available pie, it was very nice! So thank you mystery pie baker!!!



Condition - 5 - clearly homemade - not quite circular and a bit of filling leakage from out of the lid, but excellent crimping on the pie edge and lid edge

Colour - 5 - slightly pale but pretty good colour

Capacity - 4 - rather too much air inside, though that said the ratio of crust:filling in the mouth was pretty spot on!


Content - 4 - The cheese was nice - had a good strong, distinct flavour without being overpowering. However it did get a little boring after a while - could have done with something to compliment the cheese (e.g. ham)

Cheapness – 6 (estimated) - Technically free for me - as an item at a buffet - but could not determine the actual price. I imagine this was not to expensive due to the filling just being cheese

Chewiness - 6.5 - Not chewy at all. Had a nice bite to it

Consistency - 5 - Quite a nice consistency to the pie, though the flavour did get a bit boring after a while.

Total = 5.07 / 7

RAS

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Pieminister Pie Review - Free Ranger

Pieminister Free Ranger pie

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