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Tesco Cheese & Onion Brown Bread Sandwich
by michael o.
We don't have cheese and onion sandwiches in the U.S. so I'd always been curious when I heard a reference in a British TV show or novel. I finally had my chance when I made it over the pond recently and popped into the Tesco near the Gloucester Road tube station....yum! I don't know if the Tesco version is a standard take on this ... combination, but it's revelation! It had never crossed my mind that the cheese and onion would be a mashup. It's substantial, naturally tangy, a nice balance of flavors, and, as I recall, not full of awful ingredients. The brown bread is really nice and can give one the illusion of healthy eating, and for the price it cannot be beat! (Any sub-$2.00 store bought sandwich in the USA is going to be, frankly, disgusting.) It was also available in a three piece package which is nice if you're making it dinner. Tesco recently had a disastrous attempt to enter the U.S. market, alas. I guess I'll just have to wait till my next trip over.
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Fray Bentos Just Chicken Pie
by zombieflesh
Well what can I say, I'm a sucker for anything that looks like a bargain and I was tempted to try one of these pies after spotting them in my local Poundland. Of course I paid just £1.00, and from what I've seen supermarket prices can vary from between £2.00 and £3.00.
This product is essentially just a pie, in a tin. Cooking ... instructions are printed on the underside of the tin, so I made sure to check these first and set my oven to the necessary time and temperature before opening the tin. Unlike others have remarked in previous reviews, I had no problems in removing the lid. It was very easy to prepare this pie, as all I had to do was open the tin and then place it in the oven with a baking tray underneath. The baking tray is a very good idea as I found that while it was cooking some of the gravy had bubbled up over the sides of the tin and spilled out, which would have left a nasty mess at the bottom of my oven if the tray hadn't been there to catch it.
I chose this pie as kind of a compromise, as my housemate and I take it in turns to cook dinner for each other. I really dislike gravy, and he really dislikes white sauce, so I decided to brave it and try this pie anyway. The pie has a plain chicken filling with gravy and is covered in a puff pastry top. I was a little disappointed as I LOVE pastry and thought it was a shame that the pie did not have a proper crust all the way round and on the bottom, especially as this made it very difficult to serve. I attempted to first cut the pie in half before dishing it up. As soon as I started cutting into it the pastry completely deflated and lost all of the lovely light and airy texture that it had after I removed it from the oven. After cutting it I then had to basically scoop out the pie and spoon out all of the filling as there was nothing to hold it in place due to the skimpy amount of pastry only covering the top. This looked pretty awful and combined with the smell of gravy I found it to appear most unappetising. There is something about gravy that I just really dislike, I think it's partly the way that it engulfs everything else on your plate and ruins the texture making everything go soggy, and partly because the smell reminds me of cat food. The pie had a real heavy stink to it, which was coming from the gravy as none of the other ingredients have any strong noticeable smell to them. Unwilling to waste food, I soldiered on and served up my meal which consisted of this Just Chicken pie accompanied by mashed potatoes and peas.
Upon tasting the pie, my fears were confirmed. This was a complete waste of time! I thought that the pieces of chicken looked decidedly ropey and were not at all tender. The gravy started to soak in to the pastry making it go soggy. Because of the lack of vegetables or other ingredients to bulk out the filling, the serving size looked and felt quite insubstantial and I can expect that some people would not be happy with a half-tin portion unless there were enough extras to go with it and make a more balanced meal. There was practically no flavour at all that I could taste, and it came across as being very bland. The only redeeming feature is that the pie is very convenient being tinned, as you can store it in your kitchen cupboard and have it waiting for when you want to prepare a simple meal. There is barely any effort involved in preparation and cooking, but this comes across in the results and I don't think it's a match for a proper fresh pie in any way. My housemate was equally unimpressed with this offering (although grateful for my "efforts" in cooking!) and didn't even finish eating it so the cats ended up with the leftovers. I can't recommend this and certainly won't be purchasing it again.
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