Tesco Slow Cooked Steak and Ale Puff Pastry (with Proper Job ale) Pie Review

Tesco Steak and Proper Job Ale Pie Review

It has to be said that supermarket pies rarely trouble the upper echelons of the Pierate Pie Rankings and there’s a few reasons for that. Firstly, they are mass produced, which often loses the pie marks for care and passion put into making them. They also often contain 20% meat or less, meaning their content and capacity scores take a right nosedive. Added to that is the generic, mass appeal flavours they tend to focus on to keep costs down.

Which is why I’m delighted to have found a pie in Tesco that is both affordable, meaty and rates well on the 7 Cs of pie rating. Well done Tesco! You’ve done a proper job of your Slow Cooked Steak and Ale pie, featuring Proper Job ale. And at just £1.73 this is pretty much a steal!

The flaky puff pastry was pretty much spot on, being a little pale on the sides but tasting very nice indeed. It easily passed the hand held test and didn’t crumble on eating. The slow cooked chunks of British steak were not at all fatty, instead tender and filling. The beef was a whopping 37%, which is almost as high as some of the artisan pies we’ve rated highly, and far higher than the typical 20% meat you find in a lot of supermarket pies. There was still a bit of an air gap, so capacity wasn’t perfect, but it left me nicely filled in a way a lot of supermarket pies don’t. The filling to pastry ratio was again pretty much spot on.

Tesco Steak and Proper Job Ale Pie Review

Of course there will be some out there who say a steak and ale pie isn’t exactly an exciting filling option, but in my eyes this pie isn’t trying to be exuberant and doesn’t need to be. It’s a delicious classic pie flavour, with a great balance between the Proper Job ale and the rich gravy and the meaty filling. One I would certainly highly recommend at a fabulous £1.73 (or if you’re fortunate, just £2.50 for 2 when on special offer!)

Tesco Slow Cooked Steak and Ale Puff Pastry Pie (with Proper Job ale)
Score: 6.14/7
[Colour 5.5, Capacity 6, Consistency 6.25, Condition 6, Chewiness 6.5, Cheapness 6.75, Content 6, Total: 6.14/7]
RAS

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Unfortunately it appears Tesco are mis-labelling their sausage rolls as pies in their Dumfries store.

The offending sign in Tesco Dumfries

It is not simply a case of accidentally putting a packet of sausage rolls on the pie stand - which we realise a customer (rather than staff) could have done.

No - Tesco have put a giant "Fresh Pies" sign directly above an image of two sausage rolls, clearly advocating that they deem sausage rolls to be pies. Cue the...

Open letter to Tesco

I have to admit it takes a lot to shock us aboard the Pierate Ship these days. Pies - our passion and dedication for over five and a half years now - have a tough press. People often mis-label many things as pies - the shepherds pie (which should be a shepherds potato bake), pumpkin pie (which is really a tart), even whole pizzas are called pies in America!

And yet in all my days of pie rating for the web's leading pie reviewing website (www.pierate.co.uk) - which it might be worth pointing out is the number one hit when you Google "Tesco pie review" - and in fact in the 20+ years beforehand growing up, I have NEVER... EVER... seen a sausage roll called a pie before!

May I just take this opportunity to remind you that we run www.pierate.co.uk and not "ratemyroll" or any such thing. We have a readership of over 10,000 readers a month at present and they want to read our PIE reviews, not sausage roll reviews. Similarly, when they shop in a Tesco store, if they want to buy a pie, they want a pie - not a sausage roll.

I'm sure this error will be rectified immediately at the Dumfries Tesco store at which the error was made - and will also be checked at other Tesco stores nationwide to ensure that the same error has not been replicated across the country. Sure, to many of your customers the mis-labelling of a sausage roll as a pie won't be even generate the batting of an eyelid. And for sure it did not ruin our holiday to Scotland last week - just taint it with confusion and bafflement. But I am sure you will understand that we want to promote pies as much as we can and a sausage roll is NOT a pie! Let's face it - it's not called a "Sausage Pie", is it!!!

To help you out here, our Pierate Pie Dictionary clearly states what a true pie actually is:- filling fully encased in pastry with clearly defined base, sides and lid. A sausage roll does not meet these stringent criteria and never in all my days have I heard someone refer to a sausage roll as a pie before. Of course you are probably aware of our campaign to change pie pub provision, but the selling of top-crust pies has been significantly trumped by this outrageous claim that a sausage roll is a pie! Even the British Pie Awards - who have a far more liberal definition of a pie than us (they have a pasty category, for example) would not consider a sausage roll to be a pie!

As I bring this letter to a conclusion, I hope this has been useful to explain the issues surrounding the mis-labelling of food (we only need to mention "Horsemeat" to kick that off again) and will lead to a correction in your store's advertising. I am happy to speak to you further if you wish to - just email pierateship@yahoo.co.uk to arrange this.

Yours in pie,

Pierateer RAS

I am pleased to say that following this incident in Tesco Dumfries we can confirm that both Sainsburys and Greggs do know what a sausage roll looks like and label them correctly.

Sainsbury's sausage rolls

Gregg's sausage rolls

Feedback from Tesco on Twitter (updated as provided)

We helpfully pointed out to Tesco that they are mis-labelling their products and have received the following replies to date:

@pierateers Hi there, thanks for getting in touch, to let us know about this. That does seem a bit strange. (1)

— Tesco (@Tesco) July 9, 2015

@pierateers Can you advise which store this is in and when you've seen this? Thanks - Joanne (2)

— Tesco (@Tesco) July 9, 2015

Slightly later in the day Tesco had a chance to speak to the Dumfries Store Manager and then had this to report:

@pierateers Hi There. I am very sorry that this sign has upset you. It was not our intention. (1)

— Tesco (@Tesco) July 9, 2015

@pierateers I have spoken to our Duty Manager who has ordered a new poster which has pies on it. Kind regards Gemma (2)

— Tesco (@Tesco) July 9, 2015

We hope that Tesco might be able to send us a photo of the new pie poster when it takes "pie-de" of place in their pie aisle, and we've sent them a request to do so. We will update you with any news!

RAS

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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 Tesco's beef and stilton mini pies!

Tesco Pie Recipe Review

The recipe:

The following pie recipe can be found on the Tesco website. This is a great recipe for novice bakers or people who want (almost) instant pie, because it uses shop-bought pastry and doesn't involve too much preparation or cooking. You also get lots of little pies, which I quite like because it's an excuse to eat several at once.


You can find the full recipe here: http://realfood.tesco.com/recipes/beef-and-stilton-mini-pies.html

Tesco Pie Recipe Review

The 7 Cs of pie rating:

Colour:
These pies are topped with an egg-wash, meaning they come out a lovely golden brown colour.

Consistency:
The red wine, mustard, Worcestershire sauce and tomato purée give these pies a nice thick sauce that isn't quite gravy but adds a nice consistency to the filling, ensuring that the beef isn't too dry. The melted cheese also adds a nice creaminess to the pies.

Capacity:
The recipe tells you to press the filling down firmly in the pie crusts, which means that even though these are mini pies (and could therefore be a bit heavy on the pastry) you get a nice Crust:Filling ratio and lots of delicious beefy, cheesy filling.

Chewiness:
The mince in this pie is cooked in red wine and tomato purée until the liquid is absorbed, meaning it's nice and tender and melts in the mouth. The meltiness of the cheese adds to the smooth texture, and is a nice contrast to the crisp pastry.   

Cheapness:
These score pretty well for cheapness, especially if you're like me and usually have a half-used jar of mustard in the fridge that needs using up. You also get lots of pies - the recipe says fifteen if you use a mini muffin tin, but I used a full sized muffin tin and still got nine. We had two each for dinner with vegetables and gravy, so depending on how many people you're feeding you might even get a second dinner from this recipe.

Content:
In my opinion you can't really go wrong with beef and cheese, and these pies tasted like a cross between cheeseburgers and bolognese sauce (yum). This is a bit different to your usual mince and onion pie and the melting cheese is probably the best bit - the mustard was a bit overpowering so I'd suggest you use less mustard and more cheese.

Condition:
My pies didn't look quite as neat as those in the original photo, but they were a proper, appealing pie shape and they held their shape even when I cut into them. The filling leaked out a little bit, but the little individual pies still looked very tempting once they were out of the tin.

Tesco Pie Recipe Review

The Ship's Cook

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Well it would be rude not to eat a pie on Pi Day, wouldn’t it! The date is 3.14 after all!

So, with the Pierateers delighted to get the support of Tesco to rate some more pies, it was time to give them another rating! They supplied a £15 pie voucher to spend over the coming few weeks - with plenty of Tesco pies already reviewed - so the pie eaten today for Pi Day was the family sized Tesco Steak Pie.

The Tesco Steak Pie cost £3.00 for a family sized pie and are marketed as being shortcrust pastry filled with tender pieces of steak in a rich gravy, topped with a light puff pastry lid. This pie is cooked from frozen, so it does take almost an hour to cook, but was it worth the wait?

Tesco Steak Pie

Well the lid of the pie was quite nice and crisp, with the puff pastry lid being very nice. The side and base pastry was a bit thicker and some parts were more crisp that others. The pie did unfortunately fall apart slightly as I lifted it out of the foil tray but this was primarily due to there being quite a lot of content in the pie. It may not have been quite filled to the rafters with meat as a lot of the handmade pies we’ve eaten lately are, but the meat was quite nice and tender. A few chewier pieces were there too, but this was one of the more impressive supermarket pies for meat quality (especially as it wasn’t a “finest” range pie).


At £3.00 for a family sized pie, this seemed quite good value. There was plenty of meat inside, although a fair bit of onion bulking out the gravy too. The gravy was nice, not too rich but flavoursome. All in all, a mass produced frozen pie is always going to struggle a bit against fresh, handmade pies, but this was a good pie to go for if looking for a nice, affordable frozen supermarket pie. It earns "Pierate Recommended" status.

Tesco Steak Pie
Score: 5.36/7
[Colour 5.5, Capacity 5, Consistency 5, Condition 5.25, Chewiness 5, Cheapness 6, Content 5.75, Total: 5.36/7]
RAS

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British Pie Week is a celebration of British Pies, which we on the Pierate Ship absolutely love! In our quest to eat and rate as many pies as we can get our hands on, we’re making a Pieary (Pie Diary) of all the pies we eat this British Pie Week. Some of these are included as part of our #PiePledge commitments, promoting and encouraging pie consumption.

It’s been a great week of pie eating and we are delighted to reach another landmark during the week, as we reached 1,000 followers on twitter. Thanks pie fans! You can follow the Pierateers on twitter @pierateers

Pierateer RAS

The Pierateers were delighted to get the support of Tesco to rate some more pies this British Pie Week. They supplied a £15 pie voucher to spend over the coming few weeks. The pie eaten today to round off British Pie Week for me was the Tesco Steak and Ale Pie.

Tesco Steak and Ale Pie

The Tesco Steak and Ale Pie cost £2.50 for two and are marketed as being made by expert pie makers in Lancashire. This pie is cooked from frozen. The shortcrust pastry was quite nice and crisp, a little dry but generally quite good. It held the contents of the pie well and the rich ale gravy was nice. The pastry was a bit pale, but the cracked black pepper on the lid did add a bit of flavour but was not overpowering.

The capacity of the pie was okay but could have been a lot better. The actual pieces of steak were however very nice and tender. Unfortunately some of the steak was quite chewy and one piece was very fatty and gristly, which is not what you want in your pie. There was a little bit of mushroom but not much. All in all, this was quite a small pie but was only £1.25 each. I would have liked a bigger, meatier pie but the flavours were nice.

Tesco Steak and Ale
Score: 4.57/7
[Colour 5, Capacity 4, Consistency 4.5, Condition 5, Chewiness 4, Cheapness 5.5, Content 4, Total: 4.57/7]

Pierateers SJL & ALE

Pierateer ALE fulfilled her #PiePledge by making an Apple, Sausage and Black Pudding Gluten Free pie. This pie also helped Pierateer SJL fulfil his #pie4everymeal #PiePledge, see it being made in the video.

Pierateer TJP

- Coming soon!

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Pierate Pie Rating Demo – Mince Pie Edition

On board the Pierate Ship we are always looking for new ways to share our love of pies with the world. So when attending a Christmas Party with some friends, Pierateer RAS decided to - ins-pie-red by @aliimdadbakes cake making demo - host the first ever Pierate Pie Rating Demo!

That's right - an informative and educational whistle stop tour of how to rate a pie - the Pierate way! With three mince pies each to rate in a near blind taste test (the lights had been turned down low to create ambience in the room, which led to us having to use our mobile phones to see the plates of pies!!!) a group of wannabe Pierateers joined Pierateer RAS for a thorough brief.



Pie Rating Demo - before and after!

All ‘Pierateers in Training’ were given a copy of the 7 Cs - the way us Pierateers have been rating pies since we started four years ago - and were guided through the requirements. None of the guest Pierateers were told where the mince pies were bought from, let alone which one was which!

But before I tell you whose pie was rated highest by me and by the 'Pierateers in Training', here are the scores on the doors:

Cs	Pie A	Pie B	Pie C	Average
Colour	6	5	5.5	5.5
Capacity	4.75	5.25	6	5.3
Consistency	4.5	5	5.5	5
Condition	5.5	5	5.5	5.3
Chewiness	5.5	5.5	5.5	5.5
Cheapness	3	6	5.5	4.8
Content	5	5	6	5.3
Seven Cs Score	4.89	5.25	5.64	5.26

Name	Pie A	Pie B	Pie C	Highest Rated
Tim	4.14	5	5.5	Pie C
Ramin	1	5	4	Pie B
Tom	3.71	5	5	Pie B and Pie C
Will	4	4	5	Pie C
Brittany	2.86	5.14	3.57	Pie B
John	3	3	4	Pie C
Pierateer RAS	4.89	5.25	5.64	Pie C
Average	3.37	4.62	4.67	Pie C

And for those intrigued as to which pie was which, the results were:

Pie A = Heston from Waitrose Puff Pastry Mince Pie
Score: 4.89/7

Pie B = Tesco Mince Pie
Score: 5.25/7

Pie C = Sainsbury’s Deep Filled Mince Pie
Score: 5.64/7

So there we have it – while there were a few slight differences in scoring, we have a winner by a very small margin. Well done Sainsbury’s on winning this particular Pierate Pie Rating Demo – Mince Pie Edition! Until next time...

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Tesco Mince Pie Review

With the final remaining place in the “12 Pies of Christmas” video up for grabs, I thought the fairest way to decide which of the “Big 3” supermarkets – Asda, Sainsbury’s and Tesco – to buy from was to ask them why I should buy their pie! However when I’d asked the three stores if I would be able to film part of my video in store, Sainsbury’s had got back to me to say that I couldn’t – as it would cause “too much disruption in their store”. This left Asda and Tesco, so when I tweeted out to them, this is what I got back:

@pierateers @asda We have an answer! The answer my friend is @Tesco #ToPieFor : )
— Tesco (@Tesco) November 30, 2013

Unfortunately Asda didn’t reply at all. Therefore with a good pie pun – even if they hadn’t actually told me why I should buy Tesco pies over any other – I purchased the 10 mince pies I needed for the video. These pies also formed part of the first ever Pierate “Pie Rating Demo” which will be reviewed on www.pierate.co.uk soon!

10 Tesco Mince Pies


So how did these Tesco mince pies rate?

Well the mincemeat was nice and flavoursome, with a good capacity. There was plenty of fruity flavour, giving a quite good consistency, and a good ratio of filling to pastry. The pastry was a bit pale in colour and quite solid, a bit dry but held together well. Upon cutting in half, the pie did however crumble and break off quite badly. The design on the pie was quite basic but did the job and at £1.00 for a box of 6 pies (making them just 16.7ppp) they are the second cheapest pies in the 12 Pies of Christmas video, but certainly not the lowest scoring.



Tesco Mince Pie

These mince pies were a very solid performer and good value at just 16.7ppp. While I wouldn’t go as far as to say I was blown away by them, I would certainly have no problem in sharing a box or two at a Christmas party I organised.

Tesco Mince Pie
Score: 5.25/7
[Colour 5, Capacity 5.25, Consistency 5, Condition 5, Chewiness 5.5, Cheapness 6, Content 5, Total: 5.25/7]
RAS

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Tesco Vegetable Pie

About this time last year, my comrade SJL trialled a Tesco Chicken and Vegetable pie, and found it not to be to his satisfaction. His title "An Unfulfilling Situation" says it all really.

I want to see if Tesco have improved on their value pie range. Above, you can see the puff pastry has crisped nicely, and the pie is a nice golden brown colour. However, this pie is very small. The plate may look very large, but I can assure you that's a normal sized plate. The pie really is just that tiny.

The unsubstantial filling

Upon opening the pie, I note that there is a distinct lack of filling. As you can see from the picture above, the filling consists of almost exclusively carrot and broccoli, which appears to have gone mushy and fallen apart in the frothy white gravy. What's more, the quality of the vegetables looked very poor to me, and suspiciously not too dissimilar from what might come out of a value pack of frozen vegetables. The pastry was alright - very light and thin - but very standard.

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When I was invited to review a gluten free pie for the pierateers I was shocked but very excited! I had never tried a gluten free apple pie before!! So my review is based on a comparisson between what I remember apple pies to taste like before I was diagnosed as a coeliac four years ago. Just seeing the box of gluten free pies put a big smile on my face (with the exception of the supermarket name).



Prior to opening the box, I was expecting a crumbly mess of broken pieces of apple pie - because gluten free pastry does NOT hold together. To my surprise, this was not how I found the four gleaming pies. Not even a crumble had dislodged. See picture below!!

The colour was great, and the top was sprinkled with a little sugar - just the right amount.  My first bite filled me with joy and yet slight shock of the slightly fake apple taste, which I had forgotten is an element of the classic apple pie. I quickly got over this and was blown away by the amazing pastry. There was no air gap beneath the lid (which is the classic sign of a cheap pie). I think that the filling, could have had a higher proportion of apple pieces to apple syrup and the syrup was slightly rubbery. None the less, I would definitely buy this pie again and recommend to fellow coeliacs. Coming in at around £2.00 for four pies, this is a competitive price given that gluten free foodstuffs are normally twice the price of a branded product. 

Colour = 6
Consistency = 6
Content = 4.5
Capacity = 6
Cheapness = 5.5
Chewiness = 6
Condition = 7

Tesco Gluten Free Apple
Score: 5.86/7

ALE

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Tesco Pie Review for their individual Steak Pie




Thank you pie!

Score: 4.75/7

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Tesco Small Melton Mowbray Pork Pie Review

Our review of Tesco mini Melton Mowbray pies revealed a pie that was a bit lacking in quality. However we know good things come in small packages but no one ever said that about mini packages. I decided to see what I could find in the small package of the Tesco Melton Mowbray Small pork pie. I am pleased to say this was much better. It had all the qualities one would hope for from a proper Melton Mowbray Pork Pie. Proper pork was apparent surrounded by a sufficient, but not overwhelming, layer of jelly. The pastry was nice and soft. It did lack somewhat in content by gaps inside the pie as can be seen in the picture. It wasn't as good as some more upmarket Melton Morsels I have reviewed recently but at £1.15 not a bad effort. Also it comes in a somewhat patriotic wrapper. When it comes to pies I don't mind being completely partisan, if there is one thing we do have to be proud of it is pies!

Patriotic, Pork (not quite) Perfection

Tesco Small Melton Mowbray Pork Pie
Score: 4.36/7
SJL

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So shortly after the Mini Pork Pie Bites of last week, I thought I’d treat myself to a slight upgrade on the pork pies with a slightly more expensive Tesco Mini Melton Mowbray Pork Pie. I was disappointed. I’m afraid these were nothing spectacular at all, with the pastry being quite soft and soggy. The colour wasn’t that great and the meat in the pie wasn’t very good quality either. The capacity was again letting the side down, with clear pockets of air in the pork pie that you wouldn’t expect. They also weren’t cheap, costing far more per pie that the Mini Pork Pie Bites. I’m certainly glad I’m going to the home of pork pies in April for the British Pie Awards. Surely I’ll get a good Melton Mowbray there!

Score: 3.25/7

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With a Winter BBQ & Six Nations Rugby at my friends the Bentalls to go to, the invite had “bring pies” written all over it. So, with Tesco Mini Pork Pie Bites in my bag, I headed off for some sausages and ribs (and very nice they were too!) But let’s be honest – you’re only here to read about the pies. So let’s get straight to business.

Obviously being little pie bites, I wasn’t expecting them to fill the hole. But I have to admit I was expecting a bit better than I got – after all, these aren’t Tesco Everyday Pies. While the pastry was nice and firm, and not dry at all (as can be the case for some pork pies), the content was slightly grisly and chewy, so the consistency of the meat throughout the pie suffered from this. The capacity was reasonable, but with pork pies you normally expect a pretty much full pie to be served. Instead, there was certainly some air involved in mine. While they were a lovely golden colour and came in good condition, I’m not sure they are worth the cost (particularly if you don’t get the promotion of 30 pies for £5).




Too much air for my liking

Let’s face it, they were quite nice to eat, but I won’t be biting anyone’s hand off to have another one. There’s plenty more pork pies out there. A nice basic pork pie but not great content.

Score: 3.75/7

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Tesco Roast Chicken Puff Pastry Pie

Cos it fell apart,
I'd wanted to share.

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Tesco Apple and Blackberry Pie Review

Oh...how did all those other pie boxes "happen" to get in the background?!

Well, once again the Tesco sweet pie really does contain tasty chunks of Bramley apple and juicy blackberries in a delicious sweet sauce. There’s certainly no missing them, as they are slightly chewy due to their crisp nature, but the content is good and capacity next to bursting! The flavours complimented each other well and the golden coloured sweet butter enriched pastry. The short crust pastry was lovely and crunchy – perhaps almost a little too much bite to it but generally of a very high standard. The lid and base had no signs of sogginess, coming out in very good condition, and the filling was particularly fruity and full of flavour. While not blown away, it was a very reasonable pie (reasonably cheap at £2.60 for 8 slices) and I would certainly commend it. The taste was certainly consistently good throughout the pie. It seems like Tesco have finally got something right!



Score: 5.15/7

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Tesco Everyday Value Chicken & Vegetable pie review

After having tried the Tesco Everyday Value Beef and Onion pie and survived I decided to delve even deeper into the murky depths of cheap pies by getting a whole box of 4 Tesco Everyday Value Chicken and Vegetable frozen pies for a quid. The first thing I noticed was that these pies were pretty tiny which partly explained the cheapness. Once cooked however they did look fairly good with the classic shortcrust base and puff pastry lid combination.


It will be of no surprise that once I had cut into the pie no gravy or filling of any description came oozing out. I decided to cut the pie in half to have a closer look. I then separated the contents of the pie from the pastry as can be seen in the photos. It was a pretty poor showing, they didn't even fill it with the cheaper stuff like vegetables, the four peas and tiny pieces of carrot did little to hide the lack of chicken. I thought the filling could fit into a pie about a quarter of the size. Looking at the ingredients this wasn't surprising, it lists chicken breast as 10% and vegetables as 5%. To put this in context most pies we review are at least 50% filling. Everything was coated in gravy but the liquid content of the pie was pretty poor too. With other cheap pies you might expect too much gravy if anything to hide the lack of content, this pie didn't even bother.


But despite all this, as with the beef and onion version, the pie didn't actually taste bad. It was certainly edible which is more than can be said for some of the pies we have reviewed. The pastry was overly crunchy but the smear of gravy on it gave some flavour.

However, you would still, given a choice, not buy these pies. It is not like they are nutritious. They contain barely any protein and 28% of an adults daily saturated fat. I imagine they would actually often be eaten by children and I dread to think how bad it is for them. I can't help feel that people who end up feeling they have to buy these have been let down by society somehow. Maybe that is an idea. A charity to help those who are eating these pies.  Pies for the Poor; bring them a selection of pies from the Top 10 as recommended by the Pierateers! This will be our first policy as soon as the Pierateers form a political party. Given the lack of popularity of any party in the UK currently I think we might just get elected....

Chicken & Vegetable (Tesco Everyday Value)
2.24/7

SJL

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Tesco Pie Review - Everyday Value Beef and Onion

I had mixed feelings when I learnt of the demise of the Tesco Value brand. Of course it was low quality but I could remember those days at university when they helped me save a fair few pennies. I learnt to never buy the tooth breaking muesli unless I wanted to eat a mixture of stones and sawdust but there were some products I was willing to buy. At least you knew what to expect and the brand became fairly iconic with other supermarkets bringing out similar brands after the introduction of Tesco Value in 1993. There were even Tesco Value birthday cards for when it really is the thought that counts.

So, Tesco Value has been replaced with Tesco Everyday Value, a new much more appealing branding. Tesco also promise that they have improved many of the 550 products in the range. For example, the apple sauce is now to contain 33% more apple! To give our pie reviews some balance I thought this would be a good time to see how the cheapest pies stacked up against their much more pricey rivals. After all they would undoubtably score highly on cheapness.



Tesco Everyday Value Beef and Onion Pie

Inside the Tesco Everyday Value Beef and Onion Pie

I opted for a pack of three Beef and Onion pies for £1 which makes these some of the cheapest pies I have ever eaten. As you can see from the picture, they didn't look too bad, the condition was good. As soon as my knife cut the pie open however I thought these might be some trick 'air' pies like the pound shop versions we reviewed before. The filling wasn't immediately apparent, there wasn't a lot, as would be expected from these cheap pies. Taking a bite, I can safely say this wasn't the worst pie I'd ever tasted. In fact it didn't actually taste bad. The pastry was okay, it had a satisfying crunch to it. The meat in the filling was ground up so finely you couldn't actually tell that it was snouts and entrails and there was no need to chew. I saw a couple of tiny pieces of onion floating around too. Certainly this pie was below average but it was not quite as bad as I was expecting.

Tesco Everyday Value Beef and Onion Pie
Score: 2.45/7
SJL

P.S. This is our first ever post in September, strange how these things go isn't it?

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Tesco Bramley Apple Pie Review

When a type of apple has its own website, you know you’re branching out in the right direction. So while I’ve been rooting around, leaving nothing to chance, I’ve found a lot of information about the contents of our latest pie review. Don’t worry - I’ve not gone barking mad, but I've got to the core of the issue, and yes, you’ve probably twigged by now: I’m talking about the humble Bramley Apple.


Score: 4.8/7

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Tesco Steak and Red Onion Pie Review

Apologies for the unimaginative title but I have a headache. My remedy for the headache was of course pie. As a Pierateer, more unusual fillings catch my eye and this was no different for the steak and red onion pie I had for lunch today. I looked over the traditional 'steak and ale' and 'chicken and mushroom' and settled on this £2 (or 2 for £3 offer which I greedily took up) pie.


Though cooked for the recommended time, the pie was a little bit burnt on the outside but cold in the middle. However, I think this flaw is very much the fault of my oven rather than the pie. After a quick blast in the microwave to get it hot, the pie turned out to be very tasty. The steak pieces were soft and easy to eat rather than chewy. The gravy was thick and flavourful. The red onion in the pie made a lovely change from the regular white onion, which is often used a a cheap filler in regular pies. The subtle change made the pie a bit sweeter than you might expect but this is really nice. Overall, the pie was not really exciting, but made a fabulous cheap lunch treat.

Tescos Steak and Red Onion Pie
Score: 4.0/7
ARL

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Tesco Finest Chicken, Leek and Bacon Pie Review

We have here a first for Pierate - a video review of Tesco Finest Chicken, Leek and Bacon Pies which can be found in the frozen aisle of your local Tesco.

Apologies that our reviewers were confused over both the cost of the pie and the actual flavour, it had been a long day of pie reviewing.

Tesco Finest Chicken, Leek and Bacon Pie Review
Score: 5.56/7
SJL and TJP

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