I promise I have not changed a single word in this....here you are.
Disclaimer: cannot promise not to make you feel a bit ill.
THE GREAT HITCHED FRAY BENTOS PIE-IN-A-CAN EXPERIMENT
The experiment was carried out under completely un-controlled circumstances at our home in Kent. Testers were myself and Mr Lizbeth. The parameters of the experiment were outlined in the long ‘Pie’ thread on Hitched at the tail end of last week. I had volunteered to be the tester on the basis that I quite like stodgy pastry and don’t actually mind steak pies. I even quite like stewing steak out of a can. (terrible admission, I know).
Having sent Mr Lizbeth the thread about pies, once he had stopped laughing he agreed that he probably wouldn’t mind a Fray Bentos pie-in-a-can so we agreed that we would purchase and try a pie over the weekend. We went to Tescos to do our weekly shopping on Friday night after work and I had allocated the pie for our tea that night. We duly found the pies (in the aisle with all the other ‘tinned meats’, which was new territory for me) and found that FB Pies were 2 for £2. All varieties were present, including steak and ale, steak and mushroom, steak and kidney, and chicken spunk pie. I can’t be doing with kidneys, and the chicken one somehow lacked a certain appeal, so we chose the steak and ale variety. Mr Lizbeth opined that he probably would like the pie, so we chose another as a ‘storecupboard standby’ for a night when I would not be home and he needed something foolproof to cook and eat. So we bought a steak and mushroom one as well.
Having mentally allocated the pie for our tea on Friday, I suddenly found I couldn’t bring myself to have that for our tea so I bought some chicken and salad and we had a nice light healthy chicken caesar salad instead. The pie(s) sat rather malevolently on the kitchen worktop, my cupboard not having space for two round, flat 6” tins. I ignored them and prepared our nice salad.
On Saturday we contemplated going out for the afternoon and evening to do some shopping and see a film. I began to worry about when we would eat the pie. As it turned out, we didn’t go to Bluewater but did go out to a French Market at the local outlet centre. Although Mr Lizbeth proposed eating the pie for our lunch before we went, I still couldn’t quite face the idea so we had a cheese sandwich before going out to spend a completely unnecessary £20 on various cheeses, olives, crepes, bread and so on. All very nice, but the pie lurked at the back of my mind. When would we eat it? I was not really prepared to eat it for our tea, despite all the Hitcher’s helpful suggestions about what we might eat and drink with it, and what we might watch on telly or listen to whilst doing so.
Come teatime the pies still lurked menacingly on the worktop. I made chicken satay kebabs and salad for our dinner.
On Sunday I woke up and my first conscious thought was ‘bloody pie’. I knew that at some point I had to eat the damn thing because Hitchers would be expecting a report and I felt honour bound to actually carry the experiment through to a close. I did toy with the idea of burning down the kitchen so as to obliterate the pies and to provide a handy excuse to Hitchers about lack of Pie Report, but although this was tempting it was slightly extreme, so I hid the pies under a loaf of bread. I was running out of pie-based opportunities, as we were going out for curry with friends for dinner. It was pie for lunch, or bust.
Having spent a jolly morning assisting Mr Lizbeth put up some shelves, I decided to pop to the shops to buy some crackers to go with our French cheeses. When I came back I found that Mr Lizbeth had put the oven on, ready for the pie. We decided to eat the pie completely unaccompanied, on its own and in isolated splendour so that we could concentrate on it. This had the additional benefit of not ruining an entire meal.
And so to the heart of the matter. The pie. I approached with some trepidation and read the instructions on the bottom of the can. Then I opened it. As I did so a smell of uncooked meat rose from the pie. It was at best unappetising and at worst, faintly reminiscent of dog food.
I put the pie in the oven and went away for ten minutes. When I came back the pastry pie top had risen alarmingly. A meaty, beefy smell filled the kitchen. I opened the back door to let it out – but I do have to say it didn’t actually smell too bad whilst cooking. A sort of nice gravy smell.
After half an hour the pie was cooked – or, at least, the top was golden brown and in fact burning in places. It had had as long as the instructions said, so we decided that yes it was probably done. Serving it was interesting, particularly as some of the gravy had boiled out of the pie and made a superglue seal between the can and the baking tray. I cut the pastry top off first with the intention of scooping out the meat/gravy with a spoon.
This is where it got really grim. Having cut the top off, the pie smelt fairly dreadful – pedigree chum mixed with bovril. The crispy brown bit of pastry came off the top to leave a layer of white, floppy, greasy, uncooked pastry over the top of the meat layer. I am assuming that my oven was up too high and the pie cooked too quickly on the top, and that this gooey whiteish flobby pastry was supposed to be golden brown puff pastry – but it wasn’t. We discussed putting the pie back together and putting it back in the oven, but this would have achieved a burnt pie with a white flobby layer so we scraped most of it off and just ate the bits that looked remotely edible.
Pastry: ranged from golden brown through to dark brown, very crispy, not bad tasting but virtually tasteless, not stodgy enough, too crispy to the extent that it shattered everywhere. I was expecting much more stodginess (think hot Cornish Pasty) but effectively got a hot mille-feuile.
Gravy: quite nice, fairly good ‘beef’ flavour, but overtones of something synthetic and harsh. Unnaturally thick and gloopy. Way, way too salty.
‘Meat’: Peculiar texture, fairly tender, no great lumps of fat or gristle, no arteries or identifiable lips or ars*holes. Soft and sort of stringy in texture but not chewy. Bore very little resemblance to any steak i have ever eaten. Weird flavour – like all real flavour had been drained out of it and artificial ‘beef’ flavour re-introduced. Very synthetic taste, with almost metallic aftertaste.
‘Ale’: Entirely absent in flavour terms.
Mr Lizbeth ate his half of the pie – he did in fact eat all of it, but pronounced it ‘barely passable’. From a man who bemoans the lack of Findus Crispy Pancakes in his life, this is damning indeed.
I ate about half, I suppose, of the half of pie that was on my plate. The pastry was pretty inedible anyway, and I made sure that I tried some of everything, but it was just so unappetising that I couldn’t bring myself to finish it. I didn’t feel ill or revolted by it – it just was unpleasant and not nice to eat, so why bother? I did try, in the spirit of Hitched Pie Testing, but I just couldn’t finish it.
And here’s the clincher – I offered it to Mr Lizbeth, but he turned it down – this man eats pretty much anything, but he decided he would rather pass, thanks all the same.
After a long drink of water and some salted nuts to take the taste away, we ate our proper lunch – a nice french cheeseboard with some crackers, accompanied by olives and almonds. Much better.
So, the verdict is in. Fray Bentos Pies in a Can may be cheap and easy, but they are, incontravertably, unarguably, definitely and ultimately.......
........Minging.
Photos to follow – I promise – but I thought you might like to read the pie report even without supporting photographic evidence!
