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.