Would you pay £8 for a pie? Of course it would depend on the context, but the big cheeses at the Olympic Games have announced that pies will cost £8 at the "Greatest Show on Earth" - London 2012.

Check out this article on it: http://www.metro.co.uk/olympics/900735-punters-set-to-pay-4-for-olympic-beer-and-8-a-pie

Let's just hope they're the greatest pies on earth when we come to get our hands on them in July! A gold winning review is hoped for, though the expectation of the British public will be high!

Add Your Opinion 0 Opinions

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

Add Your Opinion 1 Opinion

Word on the street is that Miss Crabtree likes to crack out her chicken and rice speciality dish to all her guests, providing them with a delicious chicken in white wine sauce. Great...but why is this being mentioned on the world’s number one pie blog? Well let me tell you! For it was an absolute delight when recently frequenting said friend’s house for said chicken and rice speciality dish that the chicken dish had been covered in pastry and turned into a pie!* Excellent!

Yes, that is rice...

Chicken Pie
RAS

Add Your Opinion 0 Opinions

Fuller's Ale and Pie House Review

With some pubs you are happy to see one or two pies on the menu so when there is a choice of nine, it is like walking into a pie wonderland. This is what happened when the Pierateers visited The Mad Hatter pub in Southwark, London. This is another Fuller's Ale & Pie House like The Jack Horner visited recently.

It is also a bit of a nightmare because you want to try them all. Fortunately the pub had thought of this already by providing a mini pie platter containing five pies. In order to try more pies the Pierateers decided to split all five pies and one full sized pie between them. There were practical problems with this. With such small pies each Pierateer got a tiny amount and so there was not much time to decide a score before the flavour was gone. However the tastebuds of the Pierateers are honed to perfection and hopefully on average the scores are fair. Notes were made by the Pierateers at the time but they are fairly unintelligible now. I will try my best to decipher them. Here goes....


The Mad Hatter House Pie - Chunks of game with an orange zest in a brandy gravy.
The Pierateers were pleased that while the orange zest was very much part of the flavour of this pie it was not overpowering. The balance was good however we felt the game was slightly on the Chewy side.
TJP - 5.59   SJL - 5.56   RAS - 4.60
Overall - 5.25

Broccoli, Spinach & Cheddar
TJP described this pie as 'insipid' however it was noted that it was 'healthy considering the genre'. It must have done something right though as RAS described it as 'not too bad' and he is known for his carnivorous nature.
TJP - 4.72   SJL - 5.07   RAS - 4.30
Overall - 4.70

Steak & Fuller's Ale
'Where's the ale?' were amongst the comments from the Pierateers. The meat was noted as a bit Chewy and the Content lacking, although to be fair this was a very small pie. However special mention was reserved for the mushrooms. The decision overall was that this pie was decidedly 'nothing special'.
TJP - 4.29   SJL - 4.89   RAS - 4.40
Overall - 4.53

Chicken, Thyme & Apricot Stuffing
The comments for this pie focused on the lack of meat. The pie just tasted of onion and stuffing to some of the Pierateers, however the scores show this wasn't necessarily considered to be too bad. The Pierateers were undecided whether they would choose to eat the whole large pie in this flavour.
TJP - 4.50   SJL - 4.99   RAS - 4.90
Overall - 4.80

Gammon, Apple & Potato
Strangely this was the only mini pie not also available as a full size pie. SJL complained that he had no apple. TJP said that he had all the apple. TJP and RAS liked the gammon but controversially there is quite a divergence on scores for this pie. SJL said 'I was very disappointed, it just tasted of potato'.
TJP - 6.03   SJL - 3.56   RAS - 4.80
Overall - 4.80 

Venison, Port & Prune
As this flavour sounded very different and intriguing the Pierateers decided to choose this as the full sized pie. However, it has been said by some that this was the biggest disappointment of their pie eating career. Two out of three Pierateers failed to finish their small share of the pie as they felt 'it was only just edible'. There was however one good comment from SJL that the venison was 'melt in the mouth' but the 'bizarre flavours' let it down. The use of juniper berries was particularly questioned.
TJP - 2.09   SJL - 2.37   RAS - 1.5
Overall - 1.99

So there you go, while it was a disastrous end with, in our view, one of the worst pies ever eaten by the Pierateers, the pie platter scores quite high on average.

SJL

Add Your Opinion 0 Opinions

Getting people to read your blog posts is all about getting a good title. I think this one is pretty good, I actually came up with it before eating the pie. I then refused to change it despite the fact that the pie didn't really get close to the 'sparks flying' level of a great pie. So I am sorry, I have misled you. Don't get me wrong, this was a good pie, it was clearly premium quality, but if I were to give it a fantastic score I would be forgetting one of the most important 'Cs' that we use to rate our pies here at pierate; cheapness. At pierate we want to let you know about pies that you would want to buy, not just which pies taste better than others. If a pie is expensive it needs to do something a bit special to make me buy it again and sadly this didn't.

Now, I am slightly doing this review backwards, I should tell you what the pie was! A gastropub branded West Country Steak and Cornish IPA Ale from Marks and Spencer. This was an individual pie which cost me £3.15, fairly pricey for a small pie from a supermarket.

The pastry was fantastic, it used the classic, puff pastry lid and short crust sides combo. Despite being oven cooked it was nice and gooey. There was loads of gravy which was certainly above average. However, the steak let it down for me, I didn't feel it was premium standard. It was chewy in places when I was expecting melt in the mouth.


So the pie did score highly in a number of areas but some faults stop it from gaining top Marks.

West Country Steak and Cornish IPA Ale (Marks and Spencer)
5.05/7

SJL
 
P.S. I have just noticed the name of the pie on the box says 'IPA Ale'. As IPA stands for Indian Pale Ale, they have said Indian Pale Ale Ale on the packet. Surely that isn't right???

Follow @pierateers

Add Your Opinion 3 Opinions

This is a big year for Britain. Have we got the energy to put on a memorable celebration for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee? Can the country step up to the plate and deliver a great Olympics? At pierate.co.uk we think this comes down to whether the plate handed to the average Britain has enough energy in it. And there is more to energy than just calories. Britain needs inspiration. Britain needs passion. Britain needs something to fight for. Britain needs something warm and comforting to get through the times when the rain just doesn't stop.

Britain needs fantastic pies.

This is the fifth year of the British Pie Awards

This is where the British Pie Awards can help. By giving the best pie makers across the land the recognition they deserve this helps drive up standards. As the home of pies the bench mark is already high in Britain but we need the absolute best from our pie makers this year. The 2012 awards were held in Melton Mowbray on Wednesday 25th April. They didn't just judge Melton Mowbray pork pies but a number of different pie categories. It is good to see a number of pies recommended by us here at pierate that were among the winner. The team at Morecambe Football Club were again successful in a number of areas including best football pie and best small producer. The supreme champion was Dunkleys of Wellingborough (no I didn't know where it was either but apparently it is near Northampton). They won with a very intriguing flavour of Chicken, Ham, Mushroom, Buttered Leeks & Suet Pastry Pie. Congratulations to all at Dunkleys, it appears the Pierateers have a new destination to sail to.

SJL

Add Your Opinion 0 Opinions

Steak Pie on Beacon Hill, Leicestershire

I was over in Leicester recently visiting my mate Mark, and had a delightful trip out to an area of outstanding natural beauty. But enough about “Birds the confectioners”(at The Nook in Anstey) which served me a small, but deeply filled, Steak pie on my travels... We went on to another equally beautiful location, namely the Beacon Hill, north of Leicester. It was a lovely place to wander round and catch up with a good mate, and equally a great place to eat a lovely meatilicious pie! The only downside was a lack of heating elements to warm up my pastry beauty on top of the hill. Oh well – can’t have everything I suppose!

Birds in Anstey, north of Leicester

Add Your Opinion 0 Opinions

Ahh no. You know that feeling when you've got a slight backlog of pies that you've eaten and need reviewing, but you've misplaced your memory card that holds the photos? It is just slightly annoying.

Anyway, it hasn't escaped our notice that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have placed an advert in Gloucester encouraging us all to become vegans because otherwise we'll all die from overeating meat pies. I'm not sure why PETA specifically chose Gloucester to place the advert, but we thank them for their concerns over our health as well as the animals. Obviously one too many pies is bad for the body, but veganism isn't exactly sustainable for human health either (B12 deficiency, anyone?).

http://uk.lifestyle.yahoo.com/peta-coffin-anti-meat-obesity-pie-advert-controversy.html

Add Your Opinion 2 Opinions

Some question why most of our pie scores seem to be so high. Our average score seems to be around 5/7 which is over 70%. One obvious reason is that we do endeavour to follow up recommendations and search for the very best that the pie universe has to offer. Another is as a pie is a great product to start with you don't have to do a lot to make a great pie. Yet further reasons exist; we all eat many more pies than we have time to review so sometimes, unfortunately, the average pies are the ones that either get forgotten or just aren't interesting enough to review.

This brings me nicely to a pie I had in London the other day at The Jack Horner pub on Tottenham Court Road. This is a Fuller's Ale and Pie House which makes these average pubs sound more interesting than in fact they are. With the average decor, service and below par ambiance it would be easy not to realise that the pub had any special link to pies. However, all the pubs in this London chain have a very decent range of pies. The best part is that each of the 13 pubs has it's own House Pie. I love this fact and it does make me want to go to each location and try them all. I of course ordered the Jack Horner house pie which was Beef, Bacon and London Porter. I was a bit disappointed they missed the link to the Jack Horner nursery rhyme by not including plum in this pie.

The shape of this pie was quite interesting with a square puff pastry lid on a round shortcrust base. There was also a nice addition of a gravy boat included. Unfortunately this was needed to soften up the shortcrust pastry of this pie which tasted like cardboard in some places. I genuinely thought for a few moments that perhaps the sides were not supposed to be eaten and I was eating the container by mistake. The filling rescued it somewhat. The sauce was nice and thick and the meat was tasty but too chewy in some places. At £10.50 with mash and veg this was a pretty standard price for a pie in London.

So this pie is the perfect example of average, not bad, but nothing special. I think this deserves a middle of the road score so I have gone for 50%. I would eat it again, but why bother, there are so many better pies out there, with much more passionate service and at a similar price (e.g. Canteen)

Beef, Bacon and London Porter (The Jack Horner)
3.50/7

SJL

Add Your Opinion 0 Opinions

This Easter Sunday I paid a visit to Thame Country Show. I have attended this regularly for a number of years and have watched with interest as the number of pie sellers continues to increase.  It is great to see that pies have really become a gourmet food. No longer just a cheap pub dinner, posh pies seem to be here to stay. It is interesting that a number of the pie sellers here I have also seen in other places. The Lime Tree Pantry I saw at the Great Missenden Food Show and gave them a glowing review. Raven's Den I saw far away at Walthamstow Farmer's Market. While this might make it seem that the pies aren't very local it is still a world away from the crazy food miles traveled by some of the products we get used to buying in our local supermarkets.

The pie was so good the traditional photograph was almost forgotten

One pie seller caught my eye with a good 2 for £5 deal and some unusual flavours. The Cheese and Pie Man apparently gets his pies from Pyes Farm who also supply such places as Fortnum and Mason in Piccadilly. I had my eye on a Venison, Tomato and Chili Jam Pie. This pie looked just like a traditional pork pie because it seemed to use 'hot water crust' type pastry. This kind of pastry is sturdy and has a great golden colour. He kindly warmed the pie up in a microwave (how will the pasty tax affect his trade?) which made the pastry nice and moist. The filling did not have any gravy which is expected from this kind of pie. This made it ideal as a snack on the go. The meat was flavoursome and not at all fatty. What disappointed me however was that there seemed to be a lack of chili kick. I could only see a small amount of jam and I could barely taste any chili. However this didn't detract too much from a product that I would certainly buy again.

So, looking at their website, it seems like Pyes Farm supply a great range of mouth watering pies and I will be on the look out for more. The Cheese and Pie Man provides them at a farmers market near you at a great price, keep an eye out for him and say hello from us.

Venison, Tomato and Chili Jam Pie (Pyes Farm)
5.25/7

SJL

Add Your Opinion 0 Opinions

Add Your Opinion 0 Opinions

 The benefit of making your own pie is that you can pretty much just do what you like with it.

Though a bit late in posting, to celebrate British Pie Week, this pierateer got a bit inventive when making a pork pie. The method for the filling is surprisingly simple, yet as can be seen in the image, creates a succulent middle to this pie. The different textures of the pork, stuffing and gravy made this such a treat. Please let us know if you make this pie or any alterations you make!

First, slow roast a joint of pork. We did this in our slow cooker over night with some water, apple, onion and garlic. Once the meat is so tender it is falling apart, remove the joint. Set aside the resulting gravy (we didn't use it in this pie as it was very fatty, but we put it in the fridge and let the fat settle so we could remove it from the rest of the gravy and used the resulting sauce in a pork risotto!). Make up your pastry and line the bottom of your pie dish. Boil the kettle and make up some thick onion gravy and in a separate jug, some instant apple and sage stuffing. Put the pork, stuffing and gravy into the pie and then cover with more pastry. Cook until pastry is brown.

Enjoy! ARL

Add Your Opinion 2 Opinions