Description: The "Boozy" pie. Tender pieces of steak drenched in a delicious real ale gravy topped by our signature puff pastry.
Cooking: Cook for 30minutes on number 8.
Verdict: Well, what can you say about the famous Fray Bentos pies? They are a long established icon in the UK. I remember when I was at University a Fray Bentos pie was my monthly treat!
This particular pie is their "Boozy" Steak & Ale pie. For those who don't know, the Fray Bentos pie is a pie in a tin. You open it up with a tin opener, bung it in the oven and 30mins later its ready.
Looking at the ingredients it says 25% beef, 24% pastry and 10% brown ale. That only adds up to 59% so I'm not exactly sure what is in the rest of the pie?!
Anyway, in the oven it goes.
30 minutes later and its ready. Cutting it open and the pastry is typical Fray Bentos - nice puff pastry, typical of a Bentos pie. Inside the pieces of steak are a fraction of the size of that in the photo on the tin, and I struggled to taste any ale at all. Fortunately the beef did taste nice and the gravy did taste pretty awesome, nice, thick consistency, lovely beef taste to it. The pastry was nice and stodgy and the whole pie was quite filling. I did find a couple of pieces of fat inside it which was a little disappointment but didn't detract from the eating experience.
All in all, the best thing with a Fray Bentos pie is that you know exactly what you are getting. You always get the same taste experience. Comparing it to a non-tin pie and it cant directly compare, its a different type of experience completely. Its not exactly better or worse.. just different! Everyone should have one of these in the back of their cupboard for emergency use.
Calorie wise, each half of a pie is 377 calories, however you are likely to be eating the whole pie yourself!
Rating? 5 out of 10.
