Pierate - Pie Reviews: raisin

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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…

The 7 Cs of pie rating:

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.

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.

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

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Sunday, 8 March 2015

British Pie Week Reci-pie: The Four Course Dinner Pie

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!