Wrights Chicken & Mushroom Pie

Description: A blend of succulent chicken and delicious mushrooms in a creamy sauce with a puff pastry lid
Cost: £1.29 from local corner shop.
Cooking: 25minutes on number 4 from chilled. or 25minutes on 4 from frozen. Not sure how it can be only 5 minutes extra from frozen solid, but that's what the instructions said!!
Verdict: First impressions? Well, this was a bit of a different test for me this time around. Do you ever have those days when you suddenly get an uncontrollable urge for a pie? Well if your out & about and suffering withdrawal symptoms where do you get a pie from quickly? Well, nearly every town has people on street corners selling pies for addicts like myself. Yep, the trusty corner shop. Luckily I found I had a corner shop literally 5 minutes from where I was. Not too far for me to go to get a pie fix.

As with most corner shops they stocked the usual selection of Walls or Ginsters pies and pasties, but what really caught my eye with this pie is that it was cheap. Well, not cheap compared to 25p Tesco Value pies, but compared to the £1.99 the other pies were they were selling in their fridge, £1.29 seemed a bargain.

After running eagerly back to my car like a kid who has just been given an Easter egg I was keen to sample the merchandise. Normally I heat my pie up, but this time I just couldn't wait...

I opened up the packaging and the pie was a reasonable size. Certainly good enough for one person.

The pastry was tasty, just the right amount. The filling was something else. I really was not expecting much from a £1.29 corner shop pie, but I was amazed to see nice big chunky pieces of what looked to be chicken breast inside the pie. A few nice lumps of mushroom and a very very nice thick creamy sauce. I certainly did not expect this!!! The chicken was tender and the sauce was tasty. I couldn't really fault the filling, it certainly would put some more expensive pies I've had to shame. My only thought was that maybe if they added bits of chopped up bacon to it and did a chicken, bacon & mushroom pie it would taste even better!

All in all, I was very impressed. I noticed they also do a steak pie in the same range, so I will be trying that out in the future. Certainly a pie id recommend if you are out & about and need that pie fix!

Calorie count is 276 calories per 100g according to the label, although I couldn't see anywhere which actually said how many grams the pie weighed....

Rating?   I'm aware that because I had this pie cold, I can not really compare it against other similar pies in my blog which I've eaten hot. But, from the quality of the filling, the taste and experience of having this pie cold, I'm awarding it a 6 out of 10.

Asda "Bistro" Chicken & Ham Hock Pie

Description: Generously filled with succulent British chicken and ham hock in a creamy sauce, wrapped in crisp, golden, buttery shortcrust pastry hand finished with a herb crumb.

Cost: £2.88 or 2 for £5.50 for a 250g pie (1 serving). I got this in their reduced section for just 50p! Bargain!!!

Cooking: 25minutes on number 4 from chilled. or 40minutes on 4 from frozen.

Verdict: First impressions? Well, saw this in their bargain reduced section for 50p and couldn't resist it. I tried another Asda "Bistro" pie a couple of weeks back and for £2.88 i felt it was over priced, but for 50p.... must be a sign from god!

Cooking time wasn't too bad. This was frozen so we were looking at 40minutes until it was ready.

I cooked it up with the usual potatoes & peas. With a lashing of HP sauce on side!

On the plate, the pie looked good. Cutting it open and the pie smelt gorgeous. Nice creamy sauce. In fact it was very creamy. I couldn't see any lumps of meat in it at all. I found a couple of small pieces of ham hock and one small piece of chicken. So I was not impressed. Not another meatless pie surely? However, I tucked into it and wow, it was really tasty. It tasted of roast chicken, boiled ham and a lovely creamy chicken soup sort of thick sauce. The crust was nice, crispy and very filling. It didn't fall apart when cut open and was very stodgy. Whilst it looked like a small pie, it was very filling.

Overall, I was reasonably impressed. It shouldn't taste so good when you cant see any meat in it. But it does. Maybe its full of flavourings or maybe they just liquidise it all before they shove the filling in the pie? For the money though, its a lot of loot for a pie, but if you can find it reduced like I did for 50p, or even if it was £1 then its a no brainer. Its certainly a pie id consider buying again. Ive marked it down for lack of visible meat, but the sheer tastiness of this pie justifies the score.

Calorie count is 748 calories per pie.


Rating?   7 out of 10.