Tesco Chicken & Chorizo Puff Pastry Pie

Description: Flaky puff pastry pie filled with succulent British diced chicken with chorizo in a tomato sauce.

Cost: £1.55 for single pie.

Cooking: 50minutes on number 6 from frozen

Verdict: First impressions? Id never tried a chicken & chorizo pie before so this one caught my eye. Chicken normally works well with bacon or ham in pies, so I figured chorizo is kinda the same sort of thing but a bit spicier, so this should taste nice.

Out of the box the pie looked nice, deep filled.

Cooked for the recommended time and pies cooked a treat. So whats it like?

Well, the filling as good, nice lumps of tender chicken, nice bit of gravy which had pieces of tomato and a nice tomato / chorizo taste to it. The base wasn't too stodgy and it was a deep filled pie. The puff pastry top did seem a little over cooked, although that might just be my oven. One pie was a good portion and ideal for one person.

The contents were as described, which is unusual these days for a pie, and amazingly it even looked like the picture on the box! Unfortunately I have to say I didn't like the chorizo & chicken combination together, I found the chorizo was just too overpowering. It would have been more suited for some hearty winter Moroccan dish rather than a pie. But that's just a personal thing and others may like it. The quality of the filling and the pastry was very good however, so it gets good marks from me on that.

Calorie count is 560 calories per pie which seemed quite high! Maybe its that chorizo?!

Rating?   6 out of 10. (If id had liked the chorizo id have scored this a 7.5)

Uppercrust Deep Filled Steak Pie

Description: A deliciously deep filled pie with tender steak in rich gravy

Cost: £2.50 for 600g pie - enough for 3 big portions.

Cooking: 50minutes on number 6 from frozen

Verdict: First impressions? I hadn't tried one of these before, but from the spiel on the back of the box, Uppercrust talk about how they are "expert bakers" and they know how to make a "great pie", in fact it was nearly an essay they had written describing how wonderful their pies are etc...  That, along with the picture on the front of a steak pie with steak bursting out made me have high expectations that this would be a nice meaty pie.

In the oven it went, whilst I prepared the potatoes & peas. I even managed to persuade Mrs Piereviews to join me for this pie as being a family sized pie there was plenty to go around.

Out it came after 50 minutes and it looked nice. Top was a little over cooked in places, so I really should have checked it after 40minutes, but never the less it was cooked nicely all the way through.

Cutting through the pie showed nice puff pastry on top, and a thick shortcrust base. Quite a bit of pastry base there. The gravy was thick, smelt lovely. By now I was drooling.

I find the first piece of meat, and.... what a shame. It was a chewy bit of fatty grisle. I had to spit it out in the bin. Not a good start. Maybe it was a one off I think, so I look for another piece of steak and... it wasn't just the grisle bit of meat which was a one off, the actual bit of meat itself was a one off... I couldnt find any more meat in this 1/3rd of the pie at all!

Amazed, I asked Mrs Piereviews if she had any meat in her pie. To my relief she did. She had 3 or 4 small lumps. I pinched a couple of these and they weren't great. Were definitely some sort of meat, but were a bit chewy and weren't great.

The gravy however was nice. But for the money, ive definitely had better pies.

Calorie count is 662 calories per pie so with the pie making 3 portions that's about 220 calories each which isn't bad.

Rating?   4 out of 10. (Definitely cant recommend this one)