The recipe I based the pie on was a Hairy Biker’s recipe called Vegetarian Chestnut and Mushroom Pie. It is available here on the BBC website. I followed the recipe almost to the letter, but substituted white wine for the marsala (it had been hanging round since Christmas) and used English mustard instead of Dijon. I always like to follow the recipe first time round, then you know if i works or not. It did. Everyone liked it and when I discussed making it simpler and cheaper Julia has suggested trying it without chestnuts but keeping the rest of it the same. Time for a costing and an evaluation.
The dried mushrooms cost £100 a kilo, which sounds a lot. However, the recipe only calls for 15g, which is £1.50. I used fewer chestnuts than recommended but there will still plenty and I have enough to sir-fry some with brussels at the end of the week. Call that £1.50 too. Wine? We usually have something around that will do, so by the time you add pastry (60p), leeks and mushrooms you have a pie which cost us around £5 and served three.
A “good” supermarket pie will cost about £4 and serve two, and won’t be a patch on this one, so I’m going to stop worrying about cost.
I still need to try a cheaper version as an alternative for when I want something and don’t have dried mushrooms and chestnuts in the cupboard but I’m not going to mess around just to reduce costs.
Cocaine costs about £30,000 a kilo (according to a website I found whilst researching prices) and Chinese meals, even when divided into two in a frugal manner, still cost more than this pie so I really need to take a look at my attitude to food and life in conjunction with the cost of pies. I don’t, in case you are wondering, advocate cocaine, or any illegal drug, as a substitute for a good wholesome pie, but just thought (having been horrified by the cost of dried mushrooms per kilo) that it would make an interesting comparison.
Rhino Horn is about £44,500 per kilo in China and has no proven scientific value, in case you were wondering how it compared.
The internet is a wonderful thing, as I have said before. A very tasty pie recipe, a quick look at illicit drug prices and an overview of rhino poaching countermeasures – where else can you get all that? Even modern TV doesn’t have that variety to offer within 20 minutes.
I am going to resist putting “”cocaine” and “rhino horn” in the tags, as I don’t want to attract unwanted attention.


































