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Kidney Pie

A savory pie made with kidney, flour, onion, and puff pastry, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Kidney Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Cut the kidney into small pieces.

  2. Mix flour, salt, and pepper on a plate. Toss each piece of kidney in the flour mixture.

  3. Roll each piece of kidney with a small piece of fat. Place the rolls upright in a pie dish.

  4. Peel and finely chop the onion. Soak the onion in a basin with salt, washing soda, and boiling water for 10 minutes.

  5. Sprinkle some chopped onion, flour, salt, and pepper over the kidney. Pour stock or water into the dish until nearly full.

Top and bake

  1. Wet the edges of the dish and line with rough puff pastry. Cover the top with pastry, making a hole for steam to escape. Trim the edges with a sharp knife.

  2. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes, then reduce to 300°F (150°C) and bake for 1.5 hours.

  3. Brush the top with beaten egg before serving.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + eggtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Kidney
Forms the savoury meat base that becomes tender during long, slow baking.
Flour
Coats the kidney and thickens the stock into a gravy around the meat.
Fat
Adds richness and moisture, helping the meat stay juicy as it cooks.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma to the filling as it cooks.
Rough puff pastry
Forms a flaky, rich crust that rises and browns over the filling.
Egg
Brushed on top, it gives the crust a glossy, golden browned finish.

The step that matters

Covering the pie with a steam hole. Cutting a hole in the pastry lets steam escape during long baking, so the crust stays crisp instead of soggy and the filling does not push the lid apart.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, pepper, 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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