I am not sure about you but sometimes I look at the shelves in the Supermarkets and still end up coming away with the same old items and end up cooking the same old dishes for tea, so when I said to my other half I wanted to cook something other than fish dishes and pasta bakes (!) I stumbled upon a Fray Bentos Steak and Kidney Pie, what a bast from the past! My mum roften used to cook this for me and my sister so I thought why not relive those childhood memeories! I could not believe I had been walking past this treat for so long!

The Frey Bentos Pie cost me £1.36 in Tesco. The pie is 213g in size and comes in a sturdy metal tin. The tin is less deep than I remember but wider in size. It is attractively presented with a picture of the pie on the front and then on the reverse of the tin is nutritional information, ingredients and cooking instructions.

To open the tin did prove a little difficult. I used my regular tin opener but the metal was quite thick on the rim so it was a little tough! Once I had removed the lid I was ready to cook the pie. I cooked my pie in the oven from chilled and found that as I cooked it on the middle shelf of my oven that the sides of the pie tended to brown over a little to quickly, although this maybe due to my oven I recomended that you turn the oven down slightly towards the end of the cooking duration (approx 10 minutes before the pie is ready) in order to stop the crusts of the pie from burning.

Once I had removed the pie from the oven the smell was fantastic, just how I remembered. The pie states that it will serve 2 people, If this is the case then the portion sizes are on the smalll size (I cooked my pie with some new potatoes, carrots and peas to bulk the meal out) However, I was still happy with the size of my portion so I cut the pie in half; on cutting the gravy began to pour out of the pie and the smell of the steak was great.

The pie was easy to cut through and serve so then it was onto what it tasted like! The puff pastry was very soft and flakey and melted in your mouth. The crusts of the pie were a little hard but not to tough to complain over. The base of the pies pastry was firm but easy to bite into.

Thr cuts of steak used were diced into small cubes and very succulent. As the pieces of the steak were small they cooked really well and were not chewey or tough to eat. The kidney was not so evident in taste (15% pork kidney is ued in the pie) but never the less it was there and added a combination in flavour to the steak.

The pie is also generously made up of gravy, made from oxo and this really was a great taste.The gravy almost had a spicy taste to it and really complimented the flavours of the steak and kidney and stopped the pastry from being to dry.

A few pieces of nutritional information on the pie are as follows ~ (Per 100g)

Calories ~ 165
Protein ~ 7.9g
Carbohydrate ~ 10.8g
Fat ~ 10g

In summary this pie was certainly a great find. the taste was great and it looked really appertising on my plate. I will definately be serving this again and I think with the cost being relativly cheap it it a great purchase. The only thing that lets the product down is the portion size, it really is not quite enough for 2 people but with a side dish this is soon overcome.