i love pie and mash its one of my fave meals. Something feels very english about eating it, its a meal thats part of our culture and way of life. I havnt been in a pie and mash shop for ages i really must soon !
Fray bentos steak and kidney pie, steak and kidney mmm the king of pies in my book, This pie comes in a tin which makes it great food just to have in the cupboard as the use by date is years away,
i brought mine from the poundshop in town as on the tin it always says "£2.19" but i dont know anyone yet who has actually brought one for that price. the pound shop always have them and for a pound you would think its a bargin,
The first problem that i encountered with these pies is how bloody difficult it is to actually get the lid off round and round the tin i was going with my opener with little shards of metal i thought was going everywhere. i was quite worried about any of the shards actually landing on my pie but i persevered untill i got the damn lid off. building up the sweat on i had opening the tin i inspected the contents and it was rather dull, mainly because the pasty was wet, so i shoved the pie in the tin in the oven after reading it says 25 mins. Word of advice tho , dont do what i did and struggle to get the lid off then realise you didnt read the cooking times then your holding an open pie above your head trying to work out the tiny writing on the bottom of the tin lol !!!
So in it went for the 25 mins and i opened the oven door to be greeted by a lovely sight ! the pastry had risen big time looking all puffy and golden, i was rather excited about this meal !!!
The second problem i encountered was getting the pie out of the tin onto my plate. This is not a meal to cook up if your trying to impress someone because what i ended up with on my plate was golden puff pastry with what looked like a soggy mess on top of it covered in gravy !!!
The Taste Test: sitting down to my slop on a plate with mash i realised that with fray bentos pies the bottom remains stodgy VERY stodgy and i found myself eating just the steak and kidney with the puff pastry which left me quite gutted, granted they was actually quite generous with the filling but half the pie was left by me because it was just awfully soggy and for me inedible.
i have since tried other fray bentos pies with equal results of the soggy bottom resulting in a stodgy mess on my plate, so this one wasnt a one off
Ok its a cheap meal and handy to have in the cupboard but for me the wow factor just wasnt there !