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Steak and Kidney Pie

A savory pie filled with seasoned steak, fried kidney slices, bacon, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Steak and Kidney Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Season the steak pieces with salt, pepper, parsley, and onion, then roll them up and dust lightly with flour.

  2. Fry the kidney slices in a small amount of boiling dripping until lightly cooked, then set aside to cool.

Assemble and bake

  1. Butter a pie dish and layer the meat rolls, followed by fried kidney slices and chopped bacon.

  2. Repeat the layering until all ingredients are used, then pour in enough stock to nearly fill the dish.

  3. Cover the pie and bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 2 hours.

  4. After baking, add more stock if needed, cover with pastry, brush with beaten egg yolk, and bake until the crust is golden brown.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Steak
Forms the main meat filling and becomes tender during the long, slow bake.
Ox kidney
Adds a rich, meaty flavour and a firmer texture to the filling.
Bacon
Adds savoury fat that flavours the filling as it cooks.
Flour
Lightly coats the steak rolls, helping to thicken the stock around them.
Egg yolk
Gives the pastry crust a glossy, golden-brown colour when brushed on.

The step that matters

Fry the kidney only until lightly cooked. Kidney turns tough and rubbery if overcooked, and it will cook further during the two-hour bake, so brief frying keeps it tender.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, parsley, flour, egg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, parsley, flour, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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