Famous for its Frog Cake - a massively overpriced square piece of cake smothered in green icing. For some reason, those with money think its awesome.... Id rather spend the same on the Pie Floater down at the Post Office at 1am on a Saturday night, or that other time honored tradition of a Lamb Yiros in Hindley Street.
Angus Beef has become insanely popular in recent times, even more popular than the Japanese Wagyu Beef. Angus is a prime cut - especially from the Coorong or further south - the green pastures of the South East of South Australia. None of this "Grain Fed" feedlot business, just nice relaxed cattle grazing in the bounty of the farmers paddock. Mind you, Im not sure which (if any) prime cuts make it to the Pie industry.. its probably more of the offcuts and unpopular cuts of meat.
The Balfours Beef Pie ingredient list includes 30% Beef plus around 30 or more other ingredients including all sorts of numbers that reads a bit like a year 12 mathematics exam. One gets the impression that this pie is the result of a collaboration between a Food Chemist and the marketing department. I mean, who needs to put additional Flavour and Colour in a meat pie?
Packaging of the pie is in the normal heat resistant plastic, with the caption "Beef slow cooked in a traditional beef stock with golden flaky pastry". Im not sure how "traditional" some of those additives are, I cant recall Grandma having them in her cupboard.
The Pie itself presents well, nice colour to the crust, flaky appearance, uniform crimping around the edges. I was a bit worried about the base as it appeared to begin crumbling. If I were eating out of the bag, perhaps it may not have stood the treatment.
Interior of the pie appeared to consist of dark thick gravy interspersed by small chunks of meat.
On tasting the Pie, I immediately noted a high level of salt. Salt is used as a flavour enhancer, in other words, if it lacks natural flavour they will try and boost it by add bucket loads of salt. I generally detest high levels of salt as it masks what the food actually tastes like. I doubt if Grandma used this amount of salt in her traditional pies. The pastry was of excellent consistency. I was pleasantly surprised by the generous number of beef chucks found through out each pie.
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| A nice size chunk! |
My overall impression of the pie was that it lacked spice, it lacked taste - I mean real taste. It was bland.
I had to introduce the universal pie enhancer (Spring Gully Tomato Sauce - the greatest tomato sauce in the universe) to save my lunch.
How did I score it?
Presentation: 9/10 it looked like a pie should
Consistency: 9/10 the chunks were excellent
Taste: 5/10 - it needs to remove the science and salt and add pepper and taste
Value: 2/10 - I would have expected a better taste for the price
Overall, If you dont have a sauce like Spring Gully Tomato Sauce to boost the flavour, you would expect to be disappointed with the taste.
I would give this one a split analysis:
With Spring Gully Sauce: The Bogan Seal of Approval for every day use
Without Spring Gully Sauce: The Bogan sigh of despair
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