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Steak or Kidney Pie

A pie made with kidney or steak, suet, flour, milk, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Steak or Kidney Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. If using kidney, split it.

  2. Soak the kidney.

  3. Season the kidney or the meat.

Make and fill the pie

  1. Make a paste with suet, flour, and milk.

  2. Roll out the paste.

  3. Line a basin with the paste.

  4. Place the kidney or steak in the basin.

  5. Cover with more paste.

  6. Pinch the edges to seal.

  7. Cover with a cloth.

  8. Boil for a considerable time; if large, boil for three hours.

Make gravy and serve

  1. Make gravy using bones or gristle.

  2. After serving, cut a small piece of the crust.

  3. Pour the crust into the gravy.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Kidney
Provides the main meaty filling, which becomes tender during long, slow boiling.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the crust rich, tender and moist as it cooks.
Flour
Forms the structure of the paste that holds the crust together.
Milk
Adds moisture to the paste so it rolls out and binds smoothly.
Bones or gristle
Release collagen that gives the gravy body and a rich, savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Pinch the edges to seal. Sealed edges trap steam and juices inside during the long boil, keeping the filling moist. Gaps let liquid escape, leaving the filling dry and the crust soggy.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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