Fray Bentos Pies: Chicken Balti & Chilli Beef

The lure of Fray Bentos pies – and why I’m now the owner of a Half Time Chicken Balti Pie and a Chilli Beef Pie!

I’ve just had a short break, staying with my sister – and found myself having to kill an hour or so one morning, so I wandered into the local B&M store.  There’s not a B&M store close to where I live and I’d intended to just wander round and out without buying anything. But there they were, Fray Bentos Pies stacked on the shelf.  At first I just looked, picked up one tin, looked at them and put them back.  But then the red flash of “NEW” caught my eye – a Chilli Beef Pie!  A Fray Bentos Chilli Beef Pie!

For some reason I decided to buy it – and to prevent it from being lonely in the cupboard I also bought both:

• The Half Time Chicken Balti Pie (branded for the football season), and
• The Chilli Beef Pie!

We used to have the occasional Fray Bentos Pie when I was growing up – a real treat.  One tin served four people, although it was such a shame as I really wanted more of the pie at the time.

Holiday Caravan Pies!

One time I particularly remember mum buying Fray Bentos pies was when we were staying in a holiday caravan – they’re ideal as they come in their own tin that can then just be rinsed out and thrown away (or recycled these days!).

Upcycling Pie Tins

Also, if you’re on holiday, the empty pie tin makes a great ashtray for those members of your holiday party who still smoke 🙂  Or, for the crafty upcyclers, why not paint the tin, then fill it with beach sand and an arrangement of shells and nice beach pebbles you’ve collected. Your own Holiday Memento at Zero Cost! 🙂

A pie in a tin is pretty genius as there’s no messing about.  The pie is entirely protected inside the pie tin.  Remove the lid and it’s in its own robust baking tin – in fact, you can even keep the tins to use again (they’re handy to make small beach BBQs with).

Baking Instructions:

So, how do you cook a Fray Bentos pie?  It’s straight forward.

To bake a Fray Bentos Pie:

1. Remove the lid, with a tin opener – discard the lid, you don’t need it any more.
2. Place the pie tin on a baking tray, or, if you’ve none, then a double-thickness of foil with the edges turned up.  During cooking the pie will spill over a little bit and you need to catch any gravy spillage.
3. Place the tin/tray in an oven pre-heated to 450°F/230°C/210°C fan/Gas 8.
4. Bake for 25-30 minutes until the top puff pastry lid has risen and is brown.
5. No need to wash up, simply rinse out the tin and put it in the recycling!

Serve the pie with your favourite side dishes – whether that’s chips, or potatoes and vegetables.

Nutrition:

Half a pie is a serving of Fray Bentos pie! (I thought we were being skimped when I was a child!).
For the WHOLE pie there are 670 calories.
The WHOLE pie also contains 19.8 grams of fat, of which saturates 1.4 grams; 8.2 grams of carboyhdrates, of which sugars 15.4 grams; fibre 5 grams; protein 33.6 grams; salt 3.6 grams

So, it’s up to you whether you decide your pie serves 1, serves 2 or serves 3-4!

These are a great comfort food, ideal for keeping in the cupboard as they have a very long shelf life and can be cooked and served from the tin.  Perfect for packing if you’re having a caravan holiday, or just a cupboard item for those days when you fancy a Retro Meal!

For now, my two pies will sit in my cupboard.  There’s only me, so my Fray Bentos pie will serve one – so I have to wait until I am hungry enough to tackle it 🙂

The food cheats here are that you don’t have to have a freezer to store them, they just go in the cupboard and there’s no washing up to be done.  Simply remove the lid and bake!  You can’t get much more of a food cheat than that!

The Fray Bentos Pie Range:

The Fray Bentos Pie we used to have when I was growing up was the Steak Pie, but they now do an expanded range!  There are ‘Deep Fill’ Chicken & Mushroom Pies, Just Chicken, Steak & Ale, Steak & Kidney, Just Steak, Minced Beef & Onion, ‘Smooth’ Chicken & Mushroom, there are even individual Steak & Kidney Puddings!   You can check out the range on Amazon, who sell them singly, or in packs of 3-6: Fray Bentos Pie Range – where you’ll also discover any Limited Edition Ranges.