The Real Pie Company Steak and Horseradish and All Day Breakfast Pie Reviews

It has been almost two years since I first got my hands on the amazing pies being sold by The Real Pie Company, which all rated at least as Pierate Recommended but with plenty of Pierate Highly Recommended pies including a 6.46/7! And with well over 3,000 views of that review and countless appearances on TV shopping channel QVC now under their belt, I thought it was about time I got hold of a few more! And with me celebrating the big 3-0 last month, it felt an apt time to put in an order to entertain the guests at the pie-rty and see what new offerings The Real Pie Company could provide.



The Real Pie Company pies

I was therefore both amazed and delighted that The Real Pie Company were willing to send us several free boxes of pies - containing 20 pies in total! - to keep our guests happy at the pie-rty and also a couple of new pies that were either new or not quite on their books yet but coming out soon! These were the Limited Edition Steak and Horseradish pie and the All Day Breakfast pie, which contained bacon, sausage, egg and baked beans.

The morning after the pie-rty before!

Firstly the Steak and Horseradish pie, which came in the beautiful packaging of similar style to the previous pies I had before. The pie was a decent size, coming out nice and golden in colour with a great capacity upon cutting it open. Because I served it alongside a Peppered Steak and a Steak and Stout pie, I did have to ensure I got the right one (as they all looked quite similar!) but was delighted to tuck in and find it just as good as the steak pies I had previously and one of the best steak pies I have had in a while.

Steak and Horseradish Pie Review

The filling was “Crammed to the Crust” just like the slogan that adorns the pie packaging on these pies warns you! Not that I'm complaining one bit, with capacity one of the famous 7 Cs we rate pie on. And the Real Pie Company pies had a really good capacity throughout their range. The pies had a good pastry – golden and crisp – with a classic shortcrust base and sides and puff pastry lid. The meat was in general very nice and tender, with a nice gravy and hint of horseradish that added flavour but didn't overpower the taste.

At £2.95 each for a pie so packed with meat, this represents a good price, though they aren’t the biggest pies and thus aren’t quite the perfect value pies. But you can buy in bulk on The Real Pie Company website to get your pies cheaper. I'd certainly rate this pie as strongly as the other Steak pies in their range and let you decide which you'd choose based on your own personal preference of steak accompaniment!

The Real Pie Company Steak and Horseradish Pie
Score: 6.21/7
[Colour 6, Capacity 6.5, Consistency 6.25, Condition 6.5, Chewiness 6.25, Cheapness 5.5, Content 6.5]



The Real Pie Company's All Day Breakfast Pie cross-section

It was also a treat to get my hands on an All Day Breakfast pie, particularly as these were so new that they had a temporary packaging while the official package design is completed and printed off! Talk about hot off the press!!!

Lifting the lid on the Real Pie All Day Breakfast Pie

We've had a few All Day Breakfast pies in our time on the Pierate Ship, with a slight variety in filling in each one. This one from the Real Pie Company had a layer of bacon, topped with sausage, topped with an egg, surrounded in baked beans and finally all fully encased in pastry! Quite a mouthful to say and also to eat, this pie was once again packed to the top with filling, and when I "lifted the lid" on this pie, so to speak, it was clear what care and precision had been put into making this pie. The layers of food and lovely arrangement of baked beans made it a visual treat, while also gaining consistency in the filling.

A couple of things to note: There was a nice range of flavours in the pie but it was quite dominated by the sausage meat (which does make sense, as it was the largest item in the pie). Plus the baked beans didn't really have much of a distinct tomato-ey taste, which was fine for me as I don't like overly-tomato flavoured foods, but for someone who loves the normal tomato-ey taste of full English breakfast beans, this wouldn't tick your box! I however enjoyed the taste combo, and my main reminder to you is that this pie is a lot more filling than you might imagine, what with it being a calorific all English breakfast which has then been encased in pastry as well!!! All in all though, it was the best All Day Breakfast pie I'd sunk my teeth into, so great job!

The Real Pie Company All Day Breakfast Pie
Score: 6.11/7
[Colour 6, Capacity 6.5, Consistency 5.75, Condition 6.5, Chewiness 6.25, Cheapness 5.5, Content 6.25]

So there we have it: they real-ly have done a great job with these pies – with two more Pierate Highly Recommended pies to add to their long list of accolades! And I'm delighted to hear there are other pies in the pie-peline, so we look forward to giving them a pie rating soon!

Many thanks to Brett at The Real Pie Company for sending both these two pie samples and lots of other pies for our Birthday Pie-rty. It was a great night because of the great pies! And thanks to Amy, Becca, Dan, Hannah, Jeremy, Katharina and Laura for coming along to our after pie-rty pie meal!

RAS

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Dee's Pies Reviews - Chicken, Peppered Steak, English Breakfast and Mushroom and Asparagus Pies

It was the second week of the Wimbledon tennis championships and while it’s still early in the morning, you can sense the hustle and bustle as fans of one of the most iconic sporting events in the world start to gather for a (potentially rain interrupted) day of quality tennis.

I, however, am just in Wimbledon to talk pie. Yep – no strawberries and cream for me! I’m meeting with the owner of Dee's pies to hear how the pie world is treating them and – very importantly – get my hands on some of these apparently “Dee-licious” pies (see what they’ve done there?!)

Dee's Pies Champagne Chicken Pie Review

With a background as a chef, company owner Dee has been running the pie business as a full on business for the last 18 months or so. With the demand growing and growing (his pies have recently been in the newspapers for being well received by none-other than self-confessed pie fan and Top Gear presenter Chris Evans!), Dee finds himself in the kitchen nearly every day, with deliveries around London every few days. It was therefore great to get a good half hour chat in with the man himself! And a real pleasure it was to, talking pie and… well, more pie! This will form the basis of a future article, but for now, let’s get on with some pie rating!

See below which pies are!

To start off with, these pies have some of the nicest pastry around! It was great shortcrust pastry! A really good sign of a quality pie is that you can even enjoy the pastry on its own – and you definitely could with these Dee’s pies! The pie-fectionist in me would say the pastry did crumble slightly too easily in parts (especially the one we rated from frozen – but that was to be expected) but all in all it was delicious pastry and complimented the fillings well. You’ll also be pleased to know the pies all passed the “hand-held” test, impressive with the amount of filling packed inside! The only other thing to briefly mention about the pastry was that the colour – while far from being pale and anaemic like some pies I’ve rated – isn’t quite as golden coloured as I would demand for the perfect pie. Still, colour doesn’t affect the taste, so it certainly shouldn’t put you off purchasing!

Dees Pies have gone for the one-price-fits-all policy of £3.50 per meat pie (with vegetarian pies all being just £3). It certainly makes it easier at the market stall, though I imagine it would leave some customers thinking they are getting a better deal if they go for a lamb pie over a chicken pie, for example. All the meat pies I had were definitely packed with a lot of meat and there was pretty much no air gaps to be seen, which is great. I’d say they are a tad small compared to what I would prefer – so while one was filling I would (in part because they are so tasty!) normally prefer one and a half to two pies. This does slightly impinge on their “cheapness” score but I would still definitely buy more! They certainly are very good pies and they have a great range of pies too, so with these being the general thoughts, let’s get some individual detail!

Champagne chicken – This was a very nice chicken pie, filled to near capacity with lovely tender pieces of chicken (see photo above). While the sauce did add something to the chicken, I have preferred some other white sauces more. But the fact it is champagne will add sparkle to your dinner table and conversations if you serve it at a dinner party! A little something to compliment the chicken pieces would probably add to this pie, perhaps a little bit of carrot or similar, even though I would recommend focusing on the chicken element. A little small for £3.50 but generally very good and would eat again.

Score: 6.04/7
[Colour 5.5, Capacity 6.75, Consistency 6.25, Condition 6, Chewiness 6.5, Cheapness 5.5, Content 5.75, Total: 6.04/7]

Dee's Pies English Breakfast Pie Review

English Breakfast – The breakfast pie contained a great range of ingredients, including quite a bit of meat and egg, though the pie did taste a bit sweet – I presume as a result of the inclusion of baked beans, which are known to contain sugar. Personally I’m not a fan of baked beans anyway, but the sweetness of them had infiltrated the whole of the pie, so pie fans should be aware of this ingredient before purchasing. However capacity was very strong and it is a great idea to put a full English breakfast into pastry as a breakfast option!

Score: 5.79/7
[Colour 5.5, Capacity 6.25, Consistency 5.75, Condition 6, Chewiness 6, Cheapness 5.5, Content 5.5, Total: 5.79/7]

Dee's Pies Peppered Steak Pie Review

Peppered Steak – Very nice pie, packed with meat. A little more gravy would be ideal but meat was moist and tender. Held together quite well, though a little flaky. Few bits of fat on the meat in the pie, which was a little disappointing and stopped the pie scoring quite as highly as its’ pie-tential, but in general very good. Significant pepper, but in general one I would eat again (even if I would prefer a steak and ale!)

Score: 6.15/7
[Colour 5.5, Capacity 6.75, Consistency 6.25, Condition 6.2, Chewiness 6.5, Cheapness 5.6, Content 6.25, Total: 6.15/7]

Dee's Pies Mushroom and Asparagus Pie Review

Mushroom and Asparagus (v) – While the pastry was good as in all the pies and the capacity was strong, this combo didn’t really excite me. I am by admission a meat lover but the combo of quite chewy mushroom and crisp asparagus – while pleasant – did not really wow me. Certainly not a bad pie but I wouldn’t personally want to pay £3 for that veggie combo again. However I realise vegetarians may love this unique combo, which I don’t think I have ever heard of before!

Score: 4.86/7
[Colour 5.5, Capacity 5.5, Consistency 5, Condition 6, Chewiness 4, Cheapness 4, Content 4, Total: 4.86/7]


Overall, these really are quality pies from Dee’s Pies, made from great quality, fresh ingredients and I can certainly see why they have celebrity appeal! Two Pierate Highly Recommended offerings without even a steak and ale pie in sight! We’ll be rating two more Dee’s Pies soon, including my favourite one of the lot!

RAS

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On a wet and miserable Bank Holiday Monday, a debate was rumbling North of the border. It captured the attention of the host and listeners of BBC Radio Scotland and hit the headlines in a number of newspapers and other news outlets. Oh, and I’m not talking about the Scottish Referendum, by the way. (Or the far more important Scottish debate – Should the Scotch Pie be independent?)

The question being debated was in fact a lot closer to our heart… or in fact all our hearts, if you believe this headline from The Telegraph:

Hospital canteen's 'fry-up' pie is 'heart attack on a plate'

The pie sparking this controversy - Photo: The Telegraph

But here at Pierate we want to look at the pros and cons of making a hospital a hosPIEtal, especially after a healthy(?!) debate on BBC Radio Scotland. We tried to phone in on but sadly weren’t given the op-pie-tunity to share our views, however they did read out our tweet live on air (they just didn't acknowledge it was us):

"@BBCRadioScot: A "fry-up" pie is being sold in a hospital. @LWhiteMedia asks: Irresponsible or responding to demand?" Piefectly alright.
— Pierate (@pierateers) August 25, 2014

But first – it appears the most important two questions have not even been asked by anyone! Before we debate whether the product should be sold in the hospital, surely we need to ask:

Is it a pie? - While unfortunately not having had the chance to actually eat and rate this pie yet, having had a look at the photos this does not appear to be a fully encased in pastry product with clearly defined base, sides and lid. It certainly doesn’t meet our definition of a true pie! You can see the egg, bacon and other content – which shouldn’t be so if the pastry lid is doing its job – so I think this is really a tart.

How does the pie or ‘pie’ rate? – Before we discuss if it should be sold in a hospital, surely we should be discussing if it should be sold at all!!! If it doesn’t score strongly on the Pierateer’s 7 Cs of pie rating, then surely it is not worth selling ANYWHERE! And again looking at the photo, it is not fully encased, has a very pale pastry colour and boil out to spoil the condition, so this isn’t looking like a top scoring pie (though for just £1.50, it seems it could score well on cheapness!)


So with those two issues out of the way, we’re going to assume that it is at least worthy of being sold and briefly outline a few points regarding whether this pastry product (and pies in general) should be sold in a hospital. And thanks to some of the callers on BBC Radio Scotland’s “Morning Call” (available to listen back to until Monday 1st September) who helped me think through some of these views:

#VoteYes

1. Pie brings great joy and hap-pie-ness to all that eat them – so why would you deprive hospital patients, staff and visitors of this chance of a pastry treat as comfort food?!
2. It’s up to the patient, staff or visitor to decide if they want to eat a pie or a nutritional salad – pie contains a lot of important food substances too, even if this ‘fry up’ pie is not a great example of this.
3. Have they not read that you can eat 21 pie meals in a week and lose weight?! Incredible findings from Pierateer SJL query all this negativity about the pie being so unhealthy (and we are appalled at pie being labelled “junk food”)
4. This particular pie was on offer in the hospital shop – not even the hospital canteen or being served up to the patients! So what’s all the fuss about?!

#VoteNo

1. Well, we’re hardly to going to find many reasons not to eat pie, are we! But what I would say is that it has to be a highly rated pie, well ranked on the 7 Cs of pie rating, otherwise the pie shouldn’t be sold anywhere, let alone in a hospital! But it must be said that breakfast ‘fry up’ pie – at a reported 600-800 calories – is certainly not the most appropriate pie they could offer in a hospital. (Though we know that eating pies as part of a healthy, balanced diet can mean you lose weight.)

We may be pie-ased, but ultimately our view is that pies SHOULD be sold in hospitals – and everywhere else, while we’re at it! – but the pies on sale should be highly rated on the 7 Cs of pie rating. It is ultimately the decision of the patient, staff or visitor to decide what they eat – pie or not! So here’s our 400+ pie rankings list to help you decide which pies you should be enjoying...

RAS

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Breakfast Pie Review for Simple Simon’s Perfect Pies

You know what it's like - we've all been there! You cook a nice, greasy fry up for your lazy breakfast morning when, just as you are about to tuck in, you realise you should have been somewhere else 5 minutes ago! Do you rush down your fry up and make yourself feel ill? Or is there a realistic way to eat your hearty cooked breakfast on the go?

In other words... if only you could get a full breakfast pie!!!



Simple Simon's Breakfast Pie

Now we Pierateers have been searching for some proper full breakfast pies for a while now, so you can imagine our delight as we pulled a breakfast pie out of the treasure chest of free pies posted to us by Simple Simon's Perfect Pies to review! At £4.05, you probably wouldn’t be able to afford to eat this pie for breakfast every day (as tempted as I may be to try this!) but this pie compares with the price you’d pay for a cooked breakfast at a local diner or pub, which we think is pretty good considering the quality you’re getting.

But enough of whetting our appetite! Sure, it's a brilliant idea, but what did it actually taste like?!

Well I hope you can see from the photo cross-section that there are significant chunks of meat bursting out of this pie. You've got pieces of bacon, sausage, egg, potato, cheese, tomato and baked beans. Yes, Simon has simply put a full English breakfast into pastry and made a pie! It really is that simple!



Simple Simon's Breakfast Pie

And let's face it - it's not rocket science! The pastry was firm enough to hold the packed content in (ensuring they have maximised capacity) but still crumbled nicely under the weight of knife and fork. There was a slight leakage of fluid out of the bottom of the pie which meant the base was a bit soggy. However the sides and lids were spot on - crisp and a beautiful golden colour. The content was quite heavily tinged with the tomato and baked bean flavouring (something I personally would rather was omitted, as I'm not a baked bean fan!), however it certainly contained all the ideal parts of a great full breakfast, but one you could eat on the go if required! An interesting mix of flavours with every mouthful – which may not be everyone’s cup of tea – but one I certainly would eat with pleasure again! Thanks Simon!

If you want to read about some other breakfast pies, have a look at this delight from Morrison's or this item from Jumbucks.

Simple Simon’s Breakfast Pie [Bacon, sausage, egg, potato, cheese, tomato and baked beans]
Score: 6.07/7
[Colour 6.5/7; Consistency 5.5/7; Cheapness 5.5/7; Chewiness 6.5/7; Condition 5.5/7; Content 6.25/7; Capacity 6.75/7; Total: 6.07/7]
RAS and TJP

p.s. You've got to love the Simple Simon's Nursery Rhymes section on their website!

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