Hello again!

Who remembers when summer happened, eh? That was a good week. The sun was out, the temperature got to nearly 30°C, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I say this because I’m writing up this trip I did a few weeks ago where I wasted a perfectly good afternoon getting Doner Kebab pies, only to then retire to a nearby beer garden, but at time of writing, there’s a big old grey cloud overhead and it looks like it’s all coming down in the next few minutes.

Yes, you’ve read that right (twice if you include the title) – a Doner Kebab PIE. Thing is, these aren’t particularly new – I’ve been tipped off about them many a time, but you just don’t seem to find them on the high street. Indeed – they tend to be synonymous with football grounds. I was made aware of their existence was when I received a tip off that Armadale Thistle sold them back in 2021 (via the Footy Scran twitter feed), but I never found the time to organise a trip over. More recently, and more locally, I’ve discovered that these are on sale at Partick Thistle and St. Mirren, a far easier trip for me but now I’m scunnered due to the lack of football until the beginning of next month.

But do you really need to go to a football match to enjoy a particular foodstuff? I mean, if I really want a Bovril (unlikely), I’ll just go into the cupboard and pull out the jar of the stuff that’s been sitting there since 1998. It’ll be fine! The Doner Kebab pie though – surely these should be more mainstream? Bakers sell all sorts of weird and wonderful combinations these days, but you can’t get a kebab pie in Greggs. I did Google this, I mean, I do occasionally do research for this thing, and Glasgow by the looks of things doesn’t have a bakery that sell these things. Other towns and cities do (e.g. Paisley) – and that’s another blog post for another day (e.g. Tomorrow), but I was able to find a butcher that sells them. And his name (or at the very least his shop’s name) is David Cox.

David Cox Quality Butcher is on Bridgeton’s confusingly titled “Main Street” – I say that as I’m not from the area and have only been there a handful of times – but it strikes me that London Road is considerably busier than Main Street – but I digress. I went in and asked for 4 pies, priced at £1.90 a piece. Bargain! Now, it was at this point I finally realised at the age of 40 that there is a difference between a Butcher and a Baker. Really should have realised this earlier in my life, in many ways the clues were there, but as it turns out, whilst both of them often sell pies, the butchers make them, and the bakers bake them. I know, right? Now that I type this, it makes perfect sense! The reason I’m saying this is because, well, I had a raw one.

Please note: For the avoidance of doubt, I really don’t recommend anyone actually does this – this blog is not an instruction manual, it’s not a tome of “life hacks” (if anything, it’s probably the opposite), but I’d gone all the way out to Bridgeton to get a pie kinda hoping it would be edible out of the shop, so I gave it a go. (Besides, I had an empty stomach at that point and was round the corner from West on the Green so having food was pretty essential to my days mission.)

To my abject relief, the pie itself, in it’s uncooked state, was edible, and I don’t appear to have had any negative side effects from eating it uncooked – but I’d still rather you didn’t try this one at home, or in my case heading Calton bound on the pavement of London Road.

As you may be able to make out, the meat in the pie was already cooked – so no issues there from my point of view. The crust – well, I don’t know if it was part cooked or what, I’m not an expert on matters pie, but it certainly could have done with 15 minutes in the oven at least, but the doner meat in this one was surprisingly good – really enjoyed it! It’s not gourmet kebab meat, no, but it is a decent cut nonetheless – the doner meat wasn’t thin and long like in a regular kebab – this stuff was cut into thick, small pieces. Then there’s the sauce – or sauces – to look at. Both are red, the one in the pie being a thick pakora sauce, really got the tomato, mint and chilli flavours albeit the chilli was mild, and the topping, the red paint on the pie lid if you will, was reminiscent of a chilli jam of sorts – sweet, sticky, but with a sufficiently spicy kick.

Anyway, like I said, I bought 4 of these, so was able to experiment with these in different stages of being cooked. That’s the raw one (not recommended, again), but I did cook the other three in one go and ate them as follows:

• Pie 2: Fresh out the oven – tasty, but burned a bit
• Pie 3: Left it to cool for a bit – probably my favourite of the lot, and
• Pie 4: Cooled overnight (i.e. breakfast) – not bad, nicer than Pie 1 pastry-wise but that’s about it

I also neglected, as it turns out, to get any photographic evidence for this. Hey ho.

In summary, I really like these, and I’ll be getting more next time I have reason to be in the area. As a street snack, not recommended, but these are certainly something you could have for tea. If some enterprising lady or gentleman who found themselves in possession of a bakery wished to buy these and cook them, that would be boss.

Doner Kebab Pie, £1.90

David Cox Quality Butcher, Main Street, Bridgeton

8/10