Value For Money

Fish Pies

Tesco Finest Classic Creamy Fish Pie

€4.59 for 400g, €11.47 per kg

While this is not the finest fish pie we have ever eaten, or indeed the finest fish pie we have eaten this week, it is certainly fine. It is very creamy – as the name suggests – and we were very impressed with the salmon, which has a nice texture. The two tiny prawns on the other hand were something of a disappointment and the potato topping fared badly when compared to the opposition. To be fair to Tesco, this is the only product which has been mass-produced so it was always going to struggle to match the more small-scale producers in terms of freshness.

Verdict:Fine

Blue Haven Kinsale Fish Pie

€5.99 for 400g, €14.97 per kg

We found this fish pie in the cooler-section of the wonderfully eclectic – and admittedly quite pricey – Fallon & Byrne shop in Dublin, and fell in love after the first forkful. Well, love might be overstating it just a little, but we were certainly smitten. It has the look of something that has been homemade. The ingredient list is wonderfully pure and thanks to the presence of all that butter and cream, it has a beautifully rich – if not entirely healthy – taste and texture. The salmon is genuinely excellent, although we would have liked a little more smoked haddock in the mix, mostly because the little pieces that we did find were so good. It’s dear, mind you.

Verdict: Loving it

Avoca Fish Pie

€6.95 for 520g, €13.36 per kg

Like a bad Carry-On film, this was just a little too saucy for our tastes. It is not that the sauce was bad – it is actually lovely – it is just that there was too much of it. There was also too much potato – at 41 per cent, we reckoned it was on the high side. What we wanted was more fish. It was made with 13 per cent king prawns, which were genuinely excellent, succulent and full of flavour. There was only six per cent cod, salmon, and haddock which equated to about a mouthful and a half each. The ingredient list is impressively free of artificial ingredients and we liked the spinach. The portion was on the small side, particularly as it was supposed to be for two.

Verdict:Oooh saucey

Marks & Spencer Gastropub

€9.49 for 720g, €13.16 per kg

This pie annoyed us from the get-go. “This tray can be microwaved”, the packaging told us. So, starving, we bought it and brought it back to the office for lunch. It was only then that we read on. You microwave it for four minutes and then put it in a pre-heated oven for another 15 minutes which made it useless for lunch at our desk and left us starving. Once we finally got it into an oven and were able to eat it we were suitably impressed and our rage dissipated. The fish was nice and meaty (if fish be meaty) and tasted wonderfully fresh. The sauce was rich and the potato, flecked with pepper, was brilliant.

Verdict:Eventually good

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