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Showing posts with label pear. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pear. Show all posts
Friday, 20 March 2015
Reci-Pie Review: Waitrose Black Pudding Pie
The Ship's Cook (aka @the_cookworm) is currently on a pie mission - to find the top rated pie recipes from our nations supermarket suggestions. It started with a tweet we were sent by @jimbolimbo9 suggesting we try two pork pastry recipes from the supermarket Morrisons and from this The Ship's Cook decided to select one reci-pie from each supermarket's website or magazine to make and rate. Today is the turn of Waitrose Black Pudding pie!
Check out all our Supermarket Pie Recipes rated to date by The Ship's Cook right here:Morrisons - Pork and Cider | Tesco - Beef and Stilton | Waitrose - Black Pudding |
Here is a little-known fact about me: I absolutely LOVE black pudding. I love it so much that I have been known to order items from a restaurant menu that contain black pudding even though I don’t like the other ingredients. So when I spotted this black pudding pie recipe on the Waitrose website, I couldn’t resist making it the second instalment in my supermarket recipe series.
The recipe:
You can
find the recipe here: http://www.waitrose.com/home/recipes/recipe_directory/b/black_pudding_pie.html
I had mixed feelings about this recipe. I definitely liked the black pudding part, but one thing
I wasn’t completely convinced by was the pastry (pretty important in a
pie). Read on to find out more…
Colour:
This pie was a nice golden brown colour thanks to the egg yolk on top, although I’m not sure the lid was quite as brown and crispy as it could have been thanks to the twisted ‘top-knot’ which made the pastry quite thick and stodgy.
Consistency:
Taste-wise, the consistency of the filling in this pie is pretty good. Black pudding and pastry could be a very dry combination, but the addition of the stock and fruit makes it nice and moist, and a little bit saucy/gravyish.
This pie was a nice golden brown colour thanks to the egg yolk on top, although I’m not sure the lid was quite as brown and crispy as it could have been thanks to the twisted ‘top-knot’ which made the pastry quite thick and stodgy.
Consistency:
Taste-wise, the consistency of the filling in this pie is pretty good. Black pudding and pastry could be a very dry combination, but the addition of the stock and fruit makes it nice and moist, and a little bit saucy/gravyish.
Looks-wise, however, the consistency of this pie really isn’t very
appealing. It’s just sort of…browny red and runny and a bit lumpy. It’s not too
bad once it’s cooked but while I was preparing it I kept wondering whether this
recipe had been a really bad choice.
(See? That's not appetising at all!)
Capacity:
Based on the recipe alone, this pie should score highly for capacity – you use a fairly deep tin, pack the filling in tightly and then cover it with the pastry. If you follow the instructions, however, what you end up with loads of pastry on the top as part of the ‘top-knot’ which messes up the Crust:Filling ratio. I think you’d have better luck not using all the pastry for the lid.
Based on the recipe alone, this pie should score highly for capacity – you use a fairly deep tin, pack the filling in tightly and then cover it with the pastry. If you follow the instructions, however, what you end up with loads of pastry on the top as part of the ‘top-knot’ which messes up the Crust:Filling ratio. I think you’d have better luck not using all the pastry for the lid.
Chewiness:
This pie definitely isn’t chewy – the black pudding is cooked down into a sort of mushy puree so it’s nice and smooth. The pine nuts, pear and raisins add a nice interesting texture to stop it from being too smooth.
Cheapness:
Not a bad pie for cheapness – there aren’t that many ingredients and even though you have to buy absolutely loads of black pudding, it’s pretty cheap. Depending on whether you use fancy stock or a stock cube, and whether you’ve got raisins and a pear hanging about in the cupboard, you can keep the costs low. You will look a bit odd buying it all though, if like me your local supermarket only sells black pudding in very small packets…
Content:
As a black pudding obsessive, this scores pretty highly for me. It’s definitely unusual, and the addition of the raisins, pear and pine nuts adds a nice texture and means the black pudding isn’t too overwhelming. I ignored the suggestion of serving the pie with salad and stuck with veg and gravy, which worked well. You do have to REALLY like black pudding though, as there’s a lot of it in this pie!
Condition:
This pie looked lovely when I took it out of the tin, but a bit strange once I cut into it. The filling still looked quite unappetising and the ‘top-knot’ of pastry meant that I ended up with really thick, slightly undercooked pastry in the middle of my pie slices. I’m also not sure that puff pastry is best for the base of a pie – I think it needs a more solid base and then a puff pastry lid that isn’t so thick. We did eat some of the cold leftovers the next day and the pie sliced more easily and held its shape, but the weird lumpy pastry top still let it down.
Too much pastry in that top-knot, Waitrose!
The Ship's Cook
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.
Or why not check out the growing list of all the Ship's Cook Pie Recipe Reviews? Make sure you Follow @pierateers
and let us know your thoughts!
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Monday, 2 December 2013
Winter Warmers from Mr Kipling
Mr Kipling - Winter Warmers Pie Review
At Christmas many companies seem to come out with a festive version of their product. Maybe their chocolate bar is changed to be in the shape of a snowman. Sometimes there is no difference except the packaging. However this year Mr Kipling have come out with a festive edition which is significantly different. On the Pierate Ship we know and love Mr Kipling for their fruit pies. They have long been a favourite for our gatherings even before we came up with the concept of a pie review blog. This festive season they have released their 'Winter Warmers' fruit pies which promise to make you exceedingly merry. But are they going to be a Christmas No 1 or a festive flop? We break down the merit of these 3 festive flavours.
All these pies come in the traditional Mr Kipling pie size. They are the lattice top style, a bit different to the original Mr Kipling pies we know and love. I do prefer to see a fully encased pie but I did my best to over look this as the pies did look marvelous. They were all very well filled with hardly any air gaps. This certainly earned them some more points. All the pies were made of the usual, soft Mr Kipling pastry which had a great golden colour. They all had 46% filling which is a good filling to pastry ratio.
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| Left to Right, Plum & Pear, Apple & Cranberry and Rhubarb pies |
Rhubarb
Mr Kipling did a Rhubarb pie before which I enjoyed and I was glad to see it make a return. Like all these pies it was filled with their trademark sweet, fruity jelly. In this case it had a hint of that typical sour rhubarb taste. I do like sour things but it was verging on too sour for me. There was a good amount of rhubarb in the pie which added a nice chewiness to it. I missed the custard from the previous rhubarb version from Mr Kipling.
Mr Kipling did a Rhubarb pie before which I enjoyed and I was glad to see it make a return. Like all these pies it was filled with their trademark sweet, fruity jelly. In this case it had a hint of that typical sour rhubarb taste. I do like sour things but it was verging on too sour for me. There was a good amount of rhubarb in the pie which added a nice chewiness to it. I missed the custard from the previous rhubarb version from Mr Kipling.
4.45/7
Apple & Cranberry
A nice spin on their usual Apple pie. Again, this pie was sour due to the cranberry but I think this one got the balance just right because of the sweetness of the apple. There were whole cranberries in here which added to the texture, however there wasn't a lot of fruit and I missed the bite that a normal Mr Kipling apple pie due to the chunks of apple.
A nice spin on their usual Apple pie. Again, this pie was sour due to the cranberry but I think this one got the balance just right because of the sweetness of the apple. There were whole cranberries in here which added to the texture, however there wasn't a lot of fruit and I missed the bite that a normal Mr Kipling apple pie due to the chunks of apple.
4.80/7
Plum, Pear & Cinnamon
With the addition of cinnamon this pie did really taste festive and I think Mr Kipling really got it right here. The taste reminded me of a mince pie but the jelly made it much more moist than a mince pie. It certainly seemed like something you would want to serve on the table at a Christmas party. The use of two different fruits added a nice variety to the flavour. The only criticism is the fruit didn't have much bite to it when compared to a regular Mr Kipling pie.
With the addition of cinnamon this pie did really taste festive and I think Mr Kipling really got it right here. The taste reminded me of a mince pie but the jelly made it much more moist than a mince pie. It certainly seemed like something you would want to serve on the table at a Christmas party. The use of two different fruits added a nice variety to the flavour. The only criticism is the fruit didn't have much bite to it when compared to a regular Mr Kipling pie.
5.15/7
So there you have it. A mixed bag in this mixed box of pies but certainly all these pies are worth trying. If nothing else it is just nice to try something different. They don't have a huge amount of fruit in but the sugar jelly tastes nice. For the portable, sweet pie market these are some of the best non-standard flavours and at £1.79 they are less than 30p each.
SJL
We would like to publically thank Mr Kipling for supplying these pies to us (alongside 12 others) as a gift as part of our 4th Birthday celebrations (the only pie company to send us free pies for our birthday!) Thanks so much!
See where these pies 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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