Saturday 4 January 2014

Do I go all mushy on a beef and mushy pea pie?

ASDA Beef and Mushy Pea pie review

beef mushy pea pie

Beef and mushy peas in a pie? Pies and peas traditionally go together in the UK, and more traditionally in the North of England.

But rather than at a football match, I found this pie in my local ASDA in London – and it was sporting a blue badge of just £1 (trial price). But is £1 even too much to pay for this hearty treat? Let’s find out.

20131009_150628

That is quite an impressive cross-section there. The two layers of the pie are perfectly delineated, although the thinness of the pastry sides has meant this pie has collapsed somewhat when I cut through it. The puff pastry lid, however, has a decent flakiness to it, and is a lovely golden brown colour. The pie is filled near enough to full capacity, although there is a slight air gap if you look closely enough.

However, it is rather pea-heavy, with there seemingly being more pea in this pie than actual beef. The beef and onion mince also looks pretty standard and what I’d expect of a cheaper supermarket pie. I can’t help but think that the excess of peas simply bulks out the pie, at the expense of putting mince beef in there. That’s more than the “good dollop of mushy peas” which the description promotes – it’s a very good dollop!

So this review really goes down the same lines as other supermarket beef and onion pies, except with the addition of mushy peas. Cheap, but nothing special in my mind.

Plus I know that beef pies and mushy peas are a traditional mix, but it’s certainly not one that I am a personal fan of. I found both the mushy peas and the mince to be rather tasteless. On top of this, the mushiness of the beef mince combined with the mushiness of the peas meant that this pie was altogether very mushy indeed. It left me clamouring for something to bite onto – thankfully the edges of the pastry lid had a bit of crunch amongst the general mush. I’m not elderly quite yet, so while I still have my teeth I don’t want my food to come ready-mushed.

ASDA Beef and Mushy Pea pie
Score: 3.26/7
TJP



No comments:

Post a Comment

Thanks for getting in touch with the Pierateers!