Sainsburys have recently released a new range, called Easy To Cook Autumn Meals. They are currently 25% off.
We have tried a few and as you might expect some are better than others.
We tried the Beef & Ale Casserole and were, well, slightly disappointed.
I was pleased initially to see that they used shin for the cut of beef rather than the traditional stewing beef I would expect. The onions and mushrooms that came looked a little disappointing and tired. Rather than provide a sauce, these meals seem to be using a new paste technique to which you add water.
I followed the instructions almost to the letter, just adding some carrots and topping with some dumplings. Though the recipe didn’t call for it, I did brown the shin before placing it in a casserole dish and topping with the sauce made form boiling water and the included sauce paste. At this stage I did add the extra carrots. This was cooked for eighty minutes before adding the onions and mushrooms. This was then cooked for a further forty minutes before I added the dumplings which were cooked for a further twenty minutes.
The beef was very tender, however the whole dish lacked flavour. You certainly couldn’t taste the ale. Overall what I hoped would be a simple dish to cook, was to be honest a disappointment. So much so that if I was going to cook something like this again, I would cook it from scratch using fresh ingredients. The dumplings were great, but then I made those myself!
It cost £3.74, but will be £4.99 after the offer period has ended. I don’t think this is value for money and would rather spend more on some nice beef and a bottle of ale than buy the pack again.