Because Asda party food has been a feature in our freezer on a seasonal basis for around 3 years now Mr Lools and I have certain "old favourites". The Asda Filo prawns were included in that "favourite list", well until recently.


***Packaging***


Asda Filo prawns are part of the party food range. The packaging of the Filo prawns is branded consistently with the Asda party food range; a deep red cardboard box with a very festive look to it. There are 12 filo prawns per pack. 12 Filo prawns is written in white font and there is an image of the cooked filo prawns on the front of the packaging.

Inside of the box the filo prawns are in two sealed plastic bags. Six filo prawns in each bag. Therefore you do not need to store the product in the cardboard box if you are running out of space in the freezer as the sealed plastic bags are much easier to store than the bulky cardboard packaging.

The cooking instructions are on the packaging. The filo prawns should be cooked at 200 degrees for 8-10 minutes.

***Price***

A pack of 12 filo prawns costs £1 in Asda. I think this is very good value and a similar price to the other supermarkets party food ranges.


***Filo Prawns***

The filo prawns are as expected prawns covered in filo pasty. The prawns are stretched out and covered in filo pastry. The filo pastry parcel is about 0.5cm wide and 4 cm long. The tail of the prawn just sticks out of the filo pastry giving you something to hold and not eat this part of the prawn.

Once the prawns are cooked and removed from the oven you can smell the golden pastry and the prawns do not have a particularly fishy scent like you may expect.

The pastry is a very light golden colour. In my opinion the pastry is a little bit too light and not as golden as filo patry should be, therefore it looks slightly undercooked.

When you bite into the filo prawn you are hit with the taste of the pastry first. Unlike in previous years I found that this year the filo pastry is very soggy and not crispy like it used to be. This made the pastry seem too thick and a little too chewy as opposed to crunchy. This matter was made worse as the prawns inside the pastry were very small. Therefore when you took a mouthful you could taste savoury pastry as opposed to prawn.

The prawns inside had a very bland taste and were almost tasteless. I feel that prawns should not taste overly "fishy" but should have a meaty type fish taste. Unfortunately the prawns inside of the pastry just had quite a salty taste to them. What was more disappointing is that after biting into the prawns I noticed "black bits" inside of the prawn which meant that it hadn't been prepared properly. In the first pack we tried 5 out of the 12 prawns had these black bits in them and the following two packs we bought also had 3 prawns per pack which in my opinion were inedible.


**Nutritional Info**

Per filo prawn

22 calories
1g fat


***Overall***

I am not sure if Asda have changed the recipe of their filo prawns or I have eaten boxes from a bad batch however I really am disappointed with these products this year. Previously the Asda filo prawns contained decent sized good quality prawns in perfect pastry. This Christmas this is not the case and in the three packs I have tried the pastry has been too thick and soggy and the prawns are too small and contained "black bits" . I won't be snacking or stocking these on my buffet table unfortunately.