 A steak and kidney pie, as served in a pub | |
| Type | Savoury pie |
|---|---|
| Place of origin | Britain |
| Serving temperature | Hot |
| Main ingredients |
|
Steak and kidney pie is a popular British dish. It is a savoury pie filled principally with a mixture of diced beef, diced kidney (which may be beef, lamb, veal, or pork) and onion. Its contents are generally similar to those of steak and kidney puddings.
In modern times the fillings of steak and kidney pies and steak and kidney puddings are generally identical, [1] but until the mid-19th century the norms were steak puddings and kidney pies. [2] [n 1] Bell's Life in London and Sporting Chronicle, 1826, records a large dish of kidney pies in the window of a baker near Smithfield, [4] and ten years later a kidney-pie stand outside what is now the Old Vic, emitting sparks every time the vendor opened his portable oven to hand a hot kidney pie to a customer. [5]
"Rump Steak and Kidney Pie" was served in a Liverpool restaurant in 1847, [6] and in 1863 a Birmingham establishment offered "Beef Steak and Kidney Pie". [7] But until the 1870s kidney pies are far more frequently mentioned in the newspapers, including one thrown at a policeman during an affray in Knightsbridge in 1862, [8] and an assault case in Lambeth in 1867 when a customer attacked a waitress for bringing her a beef pie instead of a kidney one. [9] By the mid-1870s steak and kidney pies were as often mentioned as kidney ones. Both appeared in verse of the period:
You say you are too sad to eat!
Just hand your plate and try
This steak and kidney pie, my love–
This steak and kidney pie.
From Fun , 1875 [10]
I've eaten as much as a man could eat,
I've gone through a very remarkable feat;
From the twopenny tart to the kidney pie,
I've swallowed as much as I could, have I.
From The Zoo (1875), by B. C. Stephenson and Arthur Sullivan [11]
According to the cookery writer Jane Grigson, the first published recipe for the combination of steak and kidney was in 1859 in Mrs Beeton's Household Management . [12] [n 2] Beeton used it in a pudding rather than a pie. She had been sent the recipe by a correspondent in Sussex in south-east England, and Grigson speculates that it was until then a regional dish, unfamiliar to cooks in other parts of Britain. [12]
Beeton suggested that steak and kidney could be "very much enriched" by the addition of mushrooms or oysters. [13] In those days oysters were the cheaper of the two: mushroom cultivation was still in its infancy in Europe and oysters were still commonplace. [12] In the following century Dorothy Hartley (1954) recommended the use of black-gilled mushrooms rather than oysters, because long cooking is "apt to make [oysters] go hard". [1] [n 3]
Neither Beeton nor Hartley specified the type of animal from which the kidneys were to be used in a steak and kidney recipe. Grigson (1974) calls for either veal or ox kidney, [12] as does Marcus Wareing. [14] Other cooks of modern times have variously specified lamb or sheep kidney (Marguerite Patten, Nigella Lawson and John Torode), [15] ox kidney (Mary Berry, Delia Smith and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall), [16] veal kidney (Gordon Ramsay), [17] either pork or lamb (Jamie Oliver), [18] and either ox, lamb or veal kidneys (Gary Rhodes). [19]
Some versions are full, or "double-crust", pies, in which the cooking dish is lined with pastry before the meat mixture is added, after which a pastry top is put over it. [20] In other versions the meat is put straight into the dish, with only a pastry lid. [21] In either case, a pie funnel is often used to stop the top crust sinking into the meat mixture during baking. [22] Some recipes call for puff pastry; others for shortcrust. [21] In some the meat is cooked before going into the pie; [23] in others it goes in raw. [1] In addition to the steak and kidney, the filling typically contains carrots and onions, and is cooked in one or more of beef stock, red wine and stout. [24]
The steak and kidney pie is found in numerous regional variants. In the West Country clotted or double cream may be poured into the pie through a hole in the pastry topping just before serving. [25] The Ormidale pie from the Scottish Highlands is flavoured with a teaspoon each of Worcestershire sauce, vinegar and tomato sauce. [25] In East Yorkshire sliced potatoes are substituted for kidneys and the dish is called meat and pot pie. [25] In the English Midlands, Northern England and Scotland oysters or mushrooms or both are often added; in Scotland this variant is known as Musselburgh pie. [25]
Among the various vernacular names for steak and kidney pie are Kate and Sidney pie, snake and kiddy pie, and snake and pygmy pie. [26] Eric Partridge dates the first of these to around 1880. [27]
A substantial part of the plot of P. G. Wodehouse's 1963 comic novel Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves hinges on the disruptive allure of a magnificent steak and kidney pie for a young man whose fiancée has decreed that he must turn vegetarian. [28]
| Part of a series on |
| Steak |
|---|
Bubble and squeak is a British dish made from cooked potatoes and cabbage, mixed together and fried. The food writer Howard Hillman classes it as one of the "great peasant dishes of the world". The dish has been known since at least the 18th century, and in its early versions it contained cooked beef; by the mid-20th century the two vegetables had become the principal ingredients.
English cuisine encompasses the cooking styles, traditions and recipes associated with England. It has distinctive attributes of its own, but is also very similar to wider British cuisine, partly historically and partly due to the import of ingredients and ideas from the Americas, China, and India during the time of the British Empire and as a result of post-war immigration.
A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients. Sweet pies may be filled with fruit, nuts, fruit preserves, brown sugar, sweetened vegetables, or with thicker fillings based on eggs and dairy. Savoury pies may be filled with meat, eggs and cheese or a mixture of meat and vegetables.
Suet is the raw, hard fat of beef, lamb or mutton found around the loins and kidneys.
Shepherd's pie, cottage pie, or in its French version hachis Parmentier is a savoury dish of cooked minced meat topped with mashed potato and baked. The meat used may be either previously cooked or freshly minced. The usual meats are beef or lamb. The two English terms have been used interchangeably since they came into use in the late 18th and the early 19th century, although some writers insist that a shepherd's pie should contain lamb or mutton, and a cottage pie, beef.
Toad in the hole or sausage toad is a traditional English dish consisting of sausages in Yorkshire pudding batter, usually served with onion gravy and vegetables. Historically, the dish has also been prepared using other meats, such as rump steak and lamb's kidney.
Chateaubriand is a dish that traditionally consists of a large front cut fillet of tenderloin grilled between two lesser pieces of meat that are discarded after cooking. While the term originally referred to the preparation of the dish, Auguste Escoffier named the specific front cut of the tenderloin the Chateaubriand.
Queen of Puddings is a traditional British dessert, consisting of a baked, breadcrumb-thickened egg mixture, spread with jam and topped with meringue. Similar recipes are called Monmouth Pudding and Manchester Pudding.
Beef Wellington is a steak dish of English origin, made out of fillet steak coated with pâté and duxelles, wrapped in puff pastry, then baked. Some recipes include wrapping the coated meat in a crêpe or dry-cured ham to retain the moisture and prevent it from making the pastry soggy.
Eliza Acton was an English food writer and poet who produced one of Britain's first cookery books aimed at the domestic reader, Modern Cookery for Private Families. The book introduced the now-universal practice of listing ingredients and giving suggested cooking times for each recipe. It included the first recipes in English for Brussels sprouts and for spaghetti. It also contains the first recipe for what Acton called "Christmas pudding"; the dish was normally called plum pudding, recipes for which had appeared previously, although Acton was the first to put the name and recipe together.
Steak and kidney pudding is a traditional British main course in which beef steak and beef, veal, pork or lamb kidney are enclosed in suet pastry and slow-steamed on a stovetop.
A suet pudding is a boiled, steamed or baked pudding made with wheat flour and suet, often with breadcrumb, dried fruits such as raisins, other preserved fruits, and spices. The British term pudding usually refers to a dessert or sweet course, but suet puddings may be savoury.
A meat pie is a pie with a filling of meat and often with other savory ingredients. They are found in cuisines worldwide.
Sussex pond pudding, or well pudding, is a traditional English pudding from the southern county of Sussex. It is made of a suet pastry, filled with butter and sugar, and is boiled or steamed for several hours. Modern versions of the recipe often include a whole lemon enclosed in the pastry. The dish is first recorded in Hannah Woolley's 1672 book The Queen-Like Closet.
Modern Cookery for Private Families is an English cookery book by Eliza Acton. It was first published by Longmans in 1845, and was a best-seller, running through 13 editions by 1853, though its sales were later overtaken by Mrs Beeton. On the strength of the book, Delia Smith called Acton "the best writer of recipes in the English language", while Elizabeth David wondered why "this peerless writer" had been eclipsed by such inferior and inexperienced imitators.
The Queen-like Closet, Or, Rich Cabinet was a cookery book published in 1670 by the English writer on household management, Hannah Woolley. It ran through five English editions by 1684. At least two German editions were also printed.
Beef olives are an English meat dish consisting of slices of beef rolled and tied round a stuffing and braised in stock. Veal is sometimes used instead of beef, but the latter has been more common since the 18th century. Similar dishes are familiar in cuisines of other countries including France, Italy, Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic.
Media related to Steak and kidney pies at Wikimedia Commons
