Value for Money:steak pies

Denny Steak and Kidney Pie €3.99 for 424g €9.41 per kg Highs: The pastry in this pie is nice and light and fairly flaky.

The dark coloured gravy is plentiful and rich. It is easy to source, everywhere from the largest supermarket to the smallest convenience store, and a single pie will probably serve at least four people handily enough. There is a lot of lamb's kidney in the mix if offal is your thing.

Lows: If, on the other hand, offal is not for you, then this is certainly the one to avoid because when Denny says "and kidney" it really means it. While the gravy is nice enough, it is very salty - perhaps that is what it means by "richly seasoned". The steak wasn't tough, exactly, but it was on the stringy side.

Verdict: Substantial but not substandard.

Star rating: ***

Casserole Steak and Mushroom Pie €2.24 for 425g €5.30 per kg

Highs: While comparing a pie in a tin with some of the fresh options available is perhaps unfair, this does have some clear advantages. It is cheap and is certainly the one you would want in your house in the event of a nuclear winter as it will keep for at least another three years. The mushrooms are surprisingly nice and, while it looks absolutely vile cold and uncooked in the tin, the pastry puffs up rather majestically and looks a whole lot better than it has any right to.

Lows: The filling is, sadly, horrible. There is an awfulness about it all that lingers long in the memory. The "rich gravy" is very poor, the meat tastes of tin and most of the puffed-up pastry is soggy and vile.

Verdict: Only in an absolute emergency.

Star rating: *

Pie Kitchen Steak and Stout Pie

€5 for 300g €16.66 per kg

Highs: This company's mission is "to rescue the pie, the lost prince of foods, from its doldrums in the ghettoes of junk food" and we think it has done just that. It smells fantastic, comes with big hunks of fresh and tender meat and loads of perfectly cooked vegetables. The pasty is light and airy, and has a lovely herby flavour. While you may think a fiver is a lot to shell out for a pie, by the time you have demolished this, you'll think it was money well spent.

Lows: It is expensive and may be hard to find, although if you go to www.piekitchen.ie you should be able to track one down.

Verdict: Top notch

Star rating: *****

Tesco Steak and Kidney Pies €1.99 for 580g €3.46 per kg

Highs: Coming in a packet of four, these are the cheapest of the pies tried. They are produced in Ireland and the pastry is nice and moist without being soggy. These look the best once they are taken from their foil cases and cracked open. The dark, rich-looking gravy bursts out all over the place and the few good-sized chunks of meat look very tasty.

Lows: Looks can be deceptive and while these pies are certainly not horrible, the sauce is pretty tasteless and the steak chunks are a bit fatty. A single pie makes up 34 per cent of your daily fat allowance and 53 per cent of your saturate intake, which seemed to PriceWatch to be a bit heavy. There is just 11 per cent beef and 4 per cent kidney in the mix - which might explain why they are so cheap.

Verdict: Cheap but uninspired.

Star rating: ***

Marks & Spencer Steak Pie

€4.99 for 550g €9.07 per kg

Highs: The most notable thing about this steak pie is the steak, which is wonderfully tender, moist and absolutely filled with flavour. There is a lot of pastry in this pie, so luckily it tasted quite nice. It is clearly a good quality product - certainly the best of the store-bought pies - and is worth seeking out.

Lows: The packaging says that it serves three and takes 32 minutes to cook, which seems oddly precise and vaguely inconvenient to PriceWatch. While the pastry tastes nice, there is too much of it and it tends to overshadow the meat. There is not a lot of sauce and what there is is oddly pale and washed out.

Verdict: A very decent pie

Star rating: ****