We tested 5 petrol station chicken pies to find South Africa’s best padkos snack

On 14 March the world celebrates World Pi Day – a day to celebrate both maths literacy and pastry filled delights. The date has been selected because it represents the first 3 digits of pi or ?? – 3, 14 or March 14th. 

RECIPES: 14 Genius pie recipes for Pi Day

We thought we’d taste 5 different chicken and mushroom pies from South Africa’s leading petrol station forecourts. We bought them from Engen, Total, Caltex, Shell and BP and then rated them in a blind tasting.

Here are the results!

Engen Corner Bakery chicken and mushroom 
Price: R22

This pie, while having a lovely golden appearance, lost out some points on its filling with tasters commenting, “Pastry was good, not so the filling” and… “Pastry was good, not so filling”. This pie’s pastry was a little doughy and chewy. 

Appearance: 68 / 100
Texture of pastry: 75 / 100
Texture of filling: 62 / 100

Caltex King Pie chicken pie
Price: R19.90 

This pie was strange because it was rectangular as well as being pale and unappetizing in appearance. We chose the plain chicken because that was the only chicken flavour on offer. The addition of carrots was a strange choice with comments from the panel such as “Hardly any chicken. Very pale pastry.” and “Carrots! Why?”

Appearance: 40 / 100
Texture of pastry: 42 / 100
Texture of filling: 42 / 100

NOTE: Not all Caltex’s offer King Pie. 

RECIPE: Easy chicken pie

Shell Pieman’s chicken and mushroom
Price: R20.50

Tasters liked this one because it had quite a lot of chicken and mushroom pieces. Comments were “creamy delicious filling” and “Lots of chicken pieces!”

Appearance: 75 / 100
Texture of pastry: 63 /100
Texture of filling: 77 / 100

BP Wild Bean Cafe chicken and mushroom 
Price: R22.90

This pie scored consistently across all areas, with tasters really enjoying the flavour of this one. Quite simply: “I enjoyed this pie.”

Appearance: 68 / 100
Texture of pastry: 68 / 100
Texture of filling: 67 / 100

Total Pieman’s chicken and mushroom
Price: R21.90

This pie excelled on filling, there was nice mix of chicken and mushroom. Comments from the panel were: “Lots of mushrooms, nice taste” and “Very enjoyable”. 

Appearance: 75 / 100
Texture of pastry: 68 / 100
Texture of filling: 72 / 100

THE RESULTS: 

You may have noticed that two petrol stations (Total and Shell) both sell pies from the same manufacturer. Even though they scored differently in the different areas, the overall scores came out the same! 

Our winner in this test is Shell’s chicken and mushroom pie, only because it is a R1.40 cheaper than the runner up (Total) 

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