Nice Pie Zebra Pie Review

With a selection of exotic and traditional pies provided for us to rate by Nice Pie, I have to admit that the one pie out of the six that really dazzled was the black striped zebra pie. I’d herd that they were good to munch on but more importantly had chomped at the bit when eating a homemade zebra pie back last March. However at that point I thought that surely no company would make a zebra pie… so what a nice surprise to find out Nice Pie actually do!

Zebra Pie from Nice Pie

As you can see, this pie is nicely decorated with black pastry providing a striped pattern to the pie lid. While I have to admit I slightly preferred the squirrel pie design (also from Nice Pie), the zebra pattern was impressive. However when it came to the eating, the black pastry was very dry and unfortunately wasn’t very edible. Thus while providing a nice pattern, it detracted from the taste of the pie and I didn’t eat most of the black stripes. The pastry lid underneath was also a bit dry too, however the side and base pastry was nice and the filling certainly didn’t let this pie down!

The pie was filled very strongly - with top capacity – and lots of meatilicious chunks of zebra. The meat was distributed nicely throughout the pie with a tender but flavoursome consistency. There was some veg within the pie but it was quite limited and certainly you were left in no doubt that you were eating a nice meaty pie. The flavour was a lot lighter than your typical beef steak (or horse) pie, tender and at just £3.50 for a well filled pie, a welcome break from your more traditional flavours of meat.

Inside the Zebra Pie

The content was also quite nice and moist, despite there again not being much excess gravy. This didn’t drawback much from the content score, as the moisture of the meat was enough to mean there wasn’t a huge demand for additional gravy inside the pie, but did leave a slight bit of room for improvement.

The rest of the pastry was firm but nice, holding the pie together well and not too thick. With a little work on the top pastry – despite it looking very nice as it is – the delicious, packed content of this pie still makes it a good scoring and Pierate recommended pie – one I would certainly look to eat again.

Zebra Pie from Nice Pie

It’s certainly herding in the right direction to be a top rated pie with a slight tweak to the top lid pastry. I was certainly dazzled by the unique design of the top pastry and feel it did earn its stripes as a good exotic pie. With a few little tweaks this can bolt ahead of its rivals and become an even higher rated pie!

Nice Pie Zebra pie
Score: 5.29/7
[Colour 5/7; Consistency 4.5/7; Cheapness 6.25/7; Chewiness 5/7; Condition 4/7; Content 6/7; Capacity 6.25/7; Total: 5.29/7]
RAS

Watch the video of when the Pierateers made their own zebra and horse pies back in March 2013 or read the full review:

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Pie Review of Horse Pie and Zebra Pie made by the Pierateers at Pierate HQ

The UK food industry has been rocked in recent weeks by headlines relating to traces of horsemeat being found within products that were packaged as being beef, with spaghetti bolog-neighs being one of the controversial items unintentionally on offer. This has lead to some significant changes in attitudes towards what consumers choose to eat, some grovelling apologies from major UK supermarket chains but also for some inquisitive people to wonder: what does horsemeat actually taste like?!

Well here at pierate.co.uk we have tried to contact a number of major food producers involved in the horsemeat scandal in an attempt to obtain an actual horse pie, so that we could inform the nation of what horsemeat actually tasted like. Unfortunately Tesco, Findus and IKEA did not get back to us regarding our tweets. So we took things into our own hands by ordering some horsemeat from exoticmeat.co.uk – and while we were at it, we thought it rude not to pick up some zebra meat (and a few other steaks too – you’ll hear more about these in the coming weeks and months!)

So with the horse and zebra steaks having arrived and been defrosted, Pierateers RAS, SJL and ARL met together to celebrate RAS’s birthday with some pie. Here’s the video to find out how they looked coming out of the oven:



And so on to what the horse pie and zebra pie actually tasted like, in the equine frenzy which the punters dubbed “The Pierate Steaks”:

Horse Pie
The meat was quite chewy, with a strong flavour (which several Pierateers likened to kidney). In trying to compare it to a more commonly eaten meat, it had quite a beefy kick to it. You could see why, texture wise, it could easily have been mistaken for beef in the previously mentioned beef ready meals. It was not bad but not as nice as the Zebra. However the Pierateers would buy a horse pie in a shop if it was being sold commercially.



Horse Pie

Zebra Pie
All the Pierateers agreed the Zebra pie was really good – a pleasant surprise for those who had not eaten Zebra previously. The meat was a lot tenderer than the horsemeat, with a texture likened to pork and a very nice meat to eat pieces of – complementing the pastry nicely. The Pierateers would certainly be tempted to buy more zebra for a special occasion or African themed pie party, and definitely have it again if it was being sold in a pie shop.



Zebra Pie

The summary was that the horse was outdone by its stable mate, leaving the zebra to be the reigning champion in the "Pierate Steaks". There was no need for a photo finish, as the zebra won by far more than a nose. Perhaps the horse was dazzled by its equine competitor?!

One thing’s for sure, the zebra zigzagged, left us zonked and outstripped its neigh-bour.

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