Description: "made with chicken from carefully selected British farms" and Tender pieces of British chicken breast in a rich gravy, encased in a crisp shortcrust pastry
Cooking: 50 minutes on number 5.
Verdict: Well, this was my first requested review, from a guy called Cragus on the www.350z-uk.com forum. He`d heard this pie was the king of pies. I was quite sceptical as id heard that before and been sadly disappointed. It was also a waitrose pie, which you know means forking out more than the usual money on a pie. Luck would have it, theres a Waitrose literally 1/2 mile down the road from me, so I popped in there on the way home from work and bought a few pies to test.
First impressions was good. Waitrose`s branding and packaging always inspires that feeling that you are getting something special for your extra cash. This pie was £1.89 which to be honest, wasn't too bad for a pie, but over what you`d pay down Tescos. The packaging shows a lovely short crust pie, nice filling oousing out... if I wasn't a pro in this game id be sold straight away, but I've seen this sort of picture before and been very sadly disappointed.
Pie took 50mins on number 5, which is fairly typical of such a pie. I eagerly took it out, expecting to be disappointed. But, the pie looks perfectly cooked. Bung it on a plate, cut it open and.............................
OMG! This pie looks just like the one on the packaging. Big lumps of chicken, loads of gravy, nice physical size to the pie.. wow... that has to be a first.
My benchmark sides as always are potatoes (nicely boiled with a hint of salt) and peas. This pie really did smell great.
Now I'm normally a steak pie man, as you can tell from most of my reviews, so a chicken pie would really have to seriously cut the mustard to give me a good impression. My first bite of this pie was eagerly anticipated. Cut it open, short crust pastry was crisp but not too crumbly. Looked in the pie and wow, serious bits of chicken there, no cheap small pieces here. Tasted it. Wow again, tasted like nice big meaty lumps of real roast chicken. Gravy was spot on, no watery stuff here, it tasted of vegetables and chicken stock with just the right texture and thickness. The pastry was just right, crisp and not too over powering. Just the right blend of filling and pastry.
All in all I was very impressed. I didn't hold much hope for a chicken pie, but this is easily the best Ive tested so far. Other chicken pies will seriously struggle to match this king of chicken pies. This has set a new benchmark.
As always I give you the calorie content which is 486 per pie, which is very very reasonable. This is a very healthy pie!
Rating? 9 out of 10. (highest yet, and thanks to Cragus for alerting me to this very special pie.)
No comments:
Post a Comment