Hollands Steak and Kidney Pudding

Description: Chunks of diced steak & kidney covered in rich gravy, steamed in our unique pastry case,

Cost: £1.50 for 2 pies, I was lucky to get them on offer for 90p.

Cooking: Steam in a saucepan for 40mins from frozen.

Verdict:  Having tried a couple of other Hollands pies previously and being extremely impressed with them I was very much looking forward to trying their Steak & Kidney puddings. These were a first for me on this blog as they are steamed rather than oven cooked.

You simply put about an inch or so of boiling water in the bottom of a saucepan, drop the puddings in, and leave boiling for 40mins. I was a bit apprehensive as to whether this cooking technique would work, but i didn't need to be, they came out, very thoroughly cooked all the way through.

Cutting open, the contents were a rich thick gravy, with pieces of what looked like minced beef in it. There were a couple of small chunks of steak and no sign of any kidney. The gravy did however taste lovely, steak flavoured and you could certainly taste kidney in the gravy, but couldn't see it. The 2 small chunks of steak didn't taste as tender as i was expecting, and one of them actually turned out to be a bit of gristle. This was quite a disappointment as the previous Hollands pies id tried were very good.

In case it was just a one off, I actually cooked the 2nd pie and ate that too. The contents were just the same.

The pastry on the pies was really good. Very stodgy, and a good consistency. The contents didn't leak out until you put your knife through it. Very good.

All in all the pies were very filling, and quite low calories compared to other similar sized pies. Unfortunately the contents let the pie down. Id rather these had been advertised as minced beef & kidney pies as that was more accurate description.

Calorie wise, each pie is 349 calories.

Rating? 3 out of 10. Hollands make some cracking pies, but i wouldn't buy this particular one again.

Tesco Slow Cooked Steak Short Crust PIe

Description: Tesco slow cooked steak short crust pie.

Cost: 2 for £3.50.

Cooking: 35 minutes on number 6 from chilled.

Verdict: First impressions? Well this looked like a nice pie. They put quite a lot of blurb on the packaging. Firstly they mention "20% more steak" and looking that ingredients they state 44% steak, so that already sounds quite promising.

They also have a detailed description on the back of the packaging which I copy below:

"we pride ourselves on making brilliant deep fill pies, created by master bakers with years of experience. First there’s the pastry. Our short crust melts in the mouth while our puff is light and flaky - as good as anything you could make at home. 

Then there’s the filling, We`ve put 20% more meat in each pie, so every bite is packed with delicious, flavoursome good stuff. We use only British steak, carefully slow cooking it to ensure it stays beautifully tender and succulent. It’s all topped off with a rich glossy gravy that’s full of flavour.

Finally our skilled bakers are on hand to make sure every pie is cooked to crisp golden perfection - a treat for the whole family."

So all in all, its sounding good!

In the oven it goes whilst I prepare some lovely new potatoes off my garden along with the usual peas.

The pie was ready on time as per the cooking instructions. I cut into it and it had a lovely crust on it. The base was also just right, not too stodgy at all - so if you’re after a more stodgy pie this wouldn’t be for you. The contents looked good, nice chunks of beef, not 100% tender as id expect from slow cooked beef, but not too bad. There also was a nice amount of gravy which looked good but is where this pie failed desperately. Whilst it looked like nice gravy it simply tasted just like water. I couldn’t believe it. No taste at all. The meat was nice and had a good flavour to it - without any lumps of gristle or fat, but the gravy was shocking. It really ruined the whole pie.

I don’t understand how they could ruin the gravy. I made a lovely homemade steak & ale pie last week and after slow cooking the steak for about 3 hours on the stove, the juices and flavours all went into my gravy and tasted just amazing. I didn’t even need to add anything other than an oxo cube to it. It’s not rocket science.

All in all, I wouldn’t buy this buy again. In my opinion it wasn’t as tasty as their value ones.

Calorie count is 473 calories per 1/3rd of the pie.

Rating?   3 out of 10.

UPDATE: Tried this pie again tonight and this time the gravy was much better, so maybe the previous poor gravy was a one off. This time the gravy was very thick, quite tasty and complimented the steak quite nicely. The pie had a good amount of nice sized chunky lumps of steak - which was tender and quite nice. No grisle. This time around though both Mrs Pieman & myself felt the pastry wasnt as good as it could have been. There was quite a bit of crust around the outside of the pie.

However, due to the improved gravy experience this time around, id now rate this pie as a 6 out of 10 and certainly one to try if you fancy a nice steak pie. I would also point out that if you are reasonably hungry you`ll easily eat half this pie, like I did.