In a quest to help you buy the best, a Sunday Times panel of tasters put ready-made chicken pies to the test

How we conducted out tate test 

It's free and fair!

We put out a call to Sunday Times readers to be part of the panel of tasters. Forty of them came together on a Saturday morning to taste ready-made pies from leading supermarkets.

The chefs at HTA Culinary School in Randburg, Joburg, prepared the food as per the package instructions. The panel of tasters were presented with each of the products "naked" without any branding or packaging. They were asked to judge them according to their appearance, taste and texture and to say whether they would buy them or not.

Morne Kok, an internal auditor at Transaction Capital was on hand to monitor the objectivity of the blind-tasting process, from removing the packing to numbering the products, overseeing the preparation and adding up the scores.

THE RESULTS

FIRST PLACE: Pick n Pay Slow Roast Chicken Pie

Price: R69.90 for 600g

Judges's comments:

• Mohini: Nice pastry, good gravy although there could be more. The texture is chunky and moreish.
• Stephanie: This pie has the most filling of the three we tasted.
• Jacqui: Quantity of filling is great but taste is bland.
• Sarah: Nice, big pieces of chicken in the pie.
• Akira: The pastry has an aftertaste.
• Kathy: Delightful look, gorgeous crust and jolly tasty.

SECOND PLACE: Woolworths Chicken Pie

Price: R69.99 for 520g

Judges's comments:

• Bianca: The filling is too mushy and the chicken shredded. The pastry is super flaky.
• Sahil: A good crust but it separates easily.
• Beryl: Needs a few more ingredients in the filling.
• John: The filling is bland and the base too thick.
• Sean: I would prefer more chicken but the flavour wasn't bad.
• Judith: The colour and texture of the pastry is good but the filling is a bit bland.

THIRD PLACE: Checkers Cafe Culture Chicken & Mushroom Pie

Price: R54.99 for 550g

Judges's comments:

• Sean: Nice looking pie but the filling wasn't as good.
• Nicolene: The pastry was crispy yet doughy.
• Stephanie: I could taste the mushrooms and was not mad about the pastry.
• Sarah: I liked the mushrooms but the filling was fairly salty.
• Terry: The pastry is soggy and the filling too salty.
• Bianca: It is really tasty but too much salt. Filling looked compact and more of the filling would have been nice.