Charlie Bigham

In my usual nighttime doom-scrolling I came across an article regarding expensive meals from the Charlie Bigham range, which I've dabbled with previously (and not been overly impressed). Normally I'd skip over it and not give it a second thought, but the article was incredibly damning of one of the offerings (the beef wellington), stating that it was gray meat and lacked flavour. It was the colour that stood out to me, as I couldn't imagine a Waitrose-level offering coming with pre-cooked meat that has been abused that much.

So, the logical thing was to buy their new range and give it a try...

At time of writing, these are the new offerings that are available from Waitrose:

Beef Wellington (£29.95)
Coq au Vin (£16.95)
Duck Confit (£16.95)
Salmon Wellington (£19.95)
Venison Bourguignon (£16.95)

Let's be realistic for a moment (words I never utter), the above prices aren't cheap (especially the beef), and so for the price they need to be something special. After all, these are marketed as restaurant quality meals that you have at home. They also aren't meals you would have often (unless you have a significant salary / a love of high blood pressure).

Salmon Wellington

Starting off with what I had high hopes for (as I typically partake in this over the Christmas period), comes possibly the biggest disappointment. As you can see from the pictures it cooked well, with a light/fluffy pasty and salmon that falls apart as you touch it.

Sadly, this is where the good points end. The taste can only be described as bland, regardless of which part you eat. I found myself constantly wanting to add some form of sauce to it to give it some form of taste. Taking the flavour to one side left the elephant in the room: bones. I get it, fish always carries a risk of catching the odd small bone that was missed, but in this case multiple large bones in a £20 meal is unacceptable.

Duck Confit

Next we have the duck confit, which aside from the sauce burning on the foil (personally if cooking this again I'd foil it until the last 10 minutes) actually tasted good. The duck was a little overcooked (again, a lower heat or cover with tinfoil until 10 minutes before). The potato side was OK, but similar to the salmon it lacked flavour.

Venison Bourguignon

On to the second-best meal from the group (by a large margin). Tender meat, good flavour, and a potato side that if it had a little salt added to it would be spot-on. I'd definitely keep the foil on next time as you can see it got slightly too toasty (despite checking the oven temp with a thermometer). Genuinely a hearty / warming meal that while pricey for £17 was enjoyable and filling.

Coq au Vin

Now comes the anaemic-looking chicken combined with a sauce that tasted like it hadn't reduced enough. You can see from the photo that cooking it in the sauce is not a good idea (it really needs to be cooked separately to get some colour). The chicken was bland (and tough), the vegetables were OK, and in truth the potatoes were the nicest part. At £17 I'd honestly avoid this, and frankly even at £10 I'm not sure I'd to entertain this again.

Beef Wellington

Finally, we finish on what began this taste-test, the beef wellington. At £30 (with 5p change) for a Beef Wellington, it isn't cheap by any stretch. Trying to find a comparison for this gets tricky, as another supermarket wellington I've tried (at around half the price) is something I wouldn't go back to (ever), and from a restaurant perspective I've paid more than double (for a smaller portion, albeit delicious). Aiming for the £30 mark is definitely a gamble, especially with the current climate / ever-increasing bills.

How to describe the finished product, well, delicious. From the outside in, the pasty is light and tasty (the egg-wash definitely helped), the mushroom-based filling was also enjoyable (and this is coming from someone who isn't keen on mushrooms), and the meat was mostly medium-rare with a soft texture. It was the latter that surprised me as I expected them to use a cheap/nasty cut of meat for the filling (the type that requires a diamond-cut knife to make any progress with), but instead it was very tender and was close to melting in your mouth.

So, is it worth the £30 asking price? It depends... If you have decent butcher near you and don't mind making it yourself, then probably not, but if you are looking for a wellington for two that is quick / easy then the £30 makes sense for what you get. I highly recommend getting an oven thermometer to avoid under/overcooking it, and I can safely say that I will be getting another one of these before year-end.

Overall

Five meals, with two of them worth it in my opinion, and three to skip over. At some point I may revisit their standard range again (but last time it left a lot to be desired).