Beak & Sons - Honey Mustard Pork Casserole product reviews

This was the last of the new flavours that I tried, and I'm not sure if I'd buy it again after trying the other two. While there was nothing wrong with it - it actually had a lot of good points - it didn't mesh well with what I want when I think of a good Honey Mustard Pork dish.

The makers are very generous on the meat, which makes it a filling meal without being loaded down with fillers and carbs, and there was a good ratio of meat and veges as well. What did disappoint though was the sauce - unfortunately, to me, it seemed less of a casserole and more of a broth. For me, casseroles have thicker, creamier sauces, whereas I found the sauce in this pack to be weaker and more watery than I would prefer. Still, at least I know it isn't packed with gelling agents and fillers. What you see really is what you get.

Because of how wet the sauce was, even before I open the sealed plastic pouch, I had to change my menu around and ditch the mashed potato in favour of rice. Thankfully I had a pouch of rice that needed to be used up, so was able to get that one the boil pretty quick. To help infuse flavour and reduce the soupiness of the casserole, I drained half the remaining water from the rice when it was about 3/4 cooked, and replaced it with half of the sauce from the casserole, topped up with a bit of milk to add some creaminess to the sauce. It worked well enough that the dish was nice to eat.

Overall, while it will certainly have appeal in the marketplace, it's my least favourite of the new range and unlikely show up on my supermarket receipts any time soon.

I think anyone that has regularly read my reviews would realize that while I always want to eat healthily and learn new cooking skills and recipes, I inherently a lazy person that is more interested in the eating than the cooking process. I would much rather figure out how to cook meals in less time with fewer ingredients than spend money and time cooking extravagant meals. Lazy and a glutton. So in reality, meals like these are the only way that I would ever really eat a casserole unless it was out of necessity (there was nothing else to eat that I could prepare in less time) because a casserole is generally a slow-cooked meal; you need either a crockpot or pressure cooker, and I have neither of those.

When I tried the Indian Beef Curry, I used the microwave instructions, but I was less than impressed with the results, so for this Honey Mustard Pork Casserole, I decided I would be patient for once and actually put this in a casserole dish and let it slowly reheat for 20 minutes prescribed on the box. Reheating in the oven is the preferred method of preparation, as it is the top of the list in the directions, and the box front states the meal takes 20 minutes to heat, despite the microwave method only taking five minutes (a marketer would always push for the shortest time to be on the box unless that shorter time lends itself to a lower quality end-product.

As per usual, the packaging itself looks great. Easy to read, with a big picture of what you can expect the meal to look like in the end. Inside the outer cardboard packaging is the plastic pouch that needs to be cut open to get the food out. This product did squeeze out a bit easier than the Curry variety as the sauce was less viscous and the meat was in larger pieces. The reheating was simply place in an oven dish and put in the preheated oven (covered) for 20 minutes then stir before eating. Very simple directions that require no skill to complete, just patience.

This meal consists of large pieces of pork that have been slow-cooked, with small pieces of onion and carrot, in a honey mustard jus. The pork pieces remain intact during the cooking process which I was impressed with. They could still be easily broken apart with slight pressure from a fork or spoon, but it gives the customer the ability to chose the texture and flavour gradients themselves, i.e. you could keep chunks of meat coated around the outside in honey mustard, or you could completely shred it up and allow the sauce to infiltrate every inch of the meat. Personally, I like a variety of flavours in my meals, so I enjoyed keeping the meat large so that the centre of the meat was only pork flavoured and gradually increased in the honey mustard flavouring towards the outer edges of the chunks.

The flavour itself is rather sweet, with the honey adequately rounding off any harshness that would come from the mustard; a sweetness that is pushed even higher by the onion that resides in the sauce as well. The carrots were smaller than I was hoping, as I love something I can bite into, but these pieces were almost small enough to swallow without using your teeth at all.

As I was lazy, my meal didn't involve rice, mash, or adding my own greens. I simply had the meal as is, but used bread rolls to soak up the excess sauce, and as a vessel for the meat from time to time. It tasted nice, even if the sauce was a little sweet. If I were to have it again, I would definitely prepare some thicker vegetable chunks prior, to add to the product when it gets reheated in the oven.

Was it good enough to be something I would actually try again though? It was enjoyable, but it still didn't really stand out. I am a carnivore that loves the texture and flavour of meat. I almost prefer something that is tougher to chew on, compared to the slow-cooked meats that are tender but disintegrate before it gets into the mouth. For my personal tastes, I would be better off cooking my own meals, but for those that love that braised meat texture, and time-saving element, $6 a portion is pretty reasonable value.

We shared this casserole with one other person - my partner's nephew, aged 14 and a notoriously fussy eater. Because the pack is designed for two people, we made sure that there were plenty of sides so he would not feel deprived! I thought he would enjoy it because the ingredients were all items he likes, especially honey mustard. I, too, was interested to see how it would go as a main flavouring additive as I often find the sweetness of honey mustard overwhelming when served as a condiment.

As anticipated, he did like it - and I found it was nicer than I had expected because the honey and mustard were included separately rather than as a proprietary mix. The sweetness of the honey actually outweighed the mustard content, which was bound to appeal to kids, but I appreciated the balance as well. There was plenty of gravy included: this is one of the hallmarks of other Beak & Sons products I have tried in the past, and is a selling point for me. It means you have lots left on the plate for the potato etc to soak up, and there is still some for those who (like me) relish being able to mop up the very last bit with a hunk of fresh bread.

We did sprinkle on some pepper as it needed a little boost in that department, but my partner was the only one who added salt as well. This meal was served up with mashed potato and a cheese-and-vegetable salad, with bread on standby in case it was needed for mopping up duty. (It was!) It was easy and quick to prepare, and although it did not look especially attractive once on the plate, the taste and smell left you in no doubt as to whether it would be palatable.

After we had finished, we thought of some other ways it could be used. Mr 14's grandmother came from Scotland where a hearty home-made steak-and-kidney pudding would be served up in the middle of winter. She used to make the crust with suet and breadcrumbs, and the filling was always quite runny when it was tipped into the crust for steaming because some of the liquid would seep into the pastry. He said she used to make it when he was young, and he has never forgotten the aroma of the meat once the pastry "lid" was removed. He thought the honey mustard pork would be even better than steak-and-kidney, and asked if we could try making it on his next visit.

But the kiwi version with mashed potato and salad, or possibly other root vegetables like kumara or pumpkin, was just as good in my book. I would like to see Beak & Sons considering a larger family size pack to add to their range as the contents can be a little fiddly to get out of the plastic inner wrap. If Mr 14's whole family had come with him, we would have needed three packs; a larger pack would have been easier to manage and would also have saved on packaging. Something to consider for the future perhaps.