Venue: Bradley’s Bakery, 225 King’s Road, Hurst Cross, Ashton-under-Lyne. OL6 9EE
Date: 17th August 2017
Pie: Pork & Habanero Chilli Pie
Pie Temperature: Cold
Rating: 9.2
So the last of the “Three Little Pigs” from Bradley’s Bakery in Ashton-under-Lyne. It may be the last of the litter, but it was no runt.
Similarly to the Pork Pie and the Pork & Black Pudding Pie, the Pork & Habanero Chilli Pie was very pleasing to the eye. The pastry was again just the right thickness, just the right amount of crispness on the outside and cooked through well, so not a gloopy paste on the inside at all. It had a good golden colour as you can see from the photos and encased the meat and Habanero chilli filling very nicely. As per the previous two, this pie was approximately 8cm in diameter and 6cm deep. Again I was sampling the delights with a colleague and we were both quite taken when we cut into the pie with the generous amount of meat and chilli inside. The filling was again substantial and again only a very small amount of gapping between the filling and the pastry could be seen. Another Well Stuffed pie, and a good start we thought. The pork filling looked a good consistency, was a good shade of pink and had no big fatty chunks. The Habanero Chilli filling was a very pleasing red and orange colour, it looked quite moist and the filling was layered on top of the pie this time rather than sandwiched. We’d sort of expected this would be the case as a sandwich approach (as per the Black Pudding) would heave resulted in the chilli dribbling down the sides at the time of baking which would have resulted in a more chaotic looking pie filling. We agreed that the chilli layer was about 1/2cm thick and prepared ourselves for the tasting.
Now before I go any further, I think I should say that both myself and my colleague are quite partial to a bit of spiciness in out lives. We like to experiment with chilli foodstuffs such as Chilli Jam, Chilli Chocolate, Chilli Beer and well, anything with chilli in it really. So some may need to take a small bite to check the spiciness factor before diving headfirst into pie heaven as we did (Mmmmm, maybe I’m giving the game away here!).
We liked it! We liked it a lot!!!
It was definitely and unmistakably a Pork & Habanero Chilli Pie, but it wasn’t overpowered with the Habanero Chilli, it was quite subtle as the chilli topping had a little bit of sweetness to it, but not overly so, not like a Chilli Jam, or one of those Sweet Chilli Dipping Sauces that you can buy from the supermarket. It also had a little bit of an after kick which made your tongue tingle pleasantly, but not enough to send you rushing off to down a pint of ice cold milk to cool it down, it was a nice spicy warmth. I could well imagine packing a couple of these pies in a Tupperware box and heading off for a nice walk up a mountain with the pies as a reward for reaching the summit. Now there’s a thought…….
So as I said right at the beginning of this review, this was not the runt of the litter. It was in fact, the one we both wanted more of. We even had a discussion about how long it would take to pop back and buy a couple more.
But that would have been just too Piggy….. wouldn’t it?
HF.
