Skip to main content
Main

Steak and Kidney Pie

A savory pie with beef steak, kidney, eggs, tomatoes, and optional mushrooms, topped with short crust pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Beef and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,232 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Steak and Kidney Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a good oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. In a pot, combine beef steak, kidney, pepper, salt, and flour. Stir well.

  2. Add enough cold water to cover the meat and stew gently for 2 hours, covered.

  3. Mix the mushrooms (if using) with the meat and add the quartered tomatoes.

  4. If the mixture is too full, drain some gravy into a sauceboat and keep warm.

Assemble the pie

  1. Place an egg cup in the center of a pie dish and arrange the quartered hard boiled eggs around it.

  2. Cover the pie with short crust pastry, leaving a hole over the egg cup.

  3. Cut a thick strip of pastry into small squares, pinch one corner, and arrange as leaves on top.

  4. Cut another strip halfway through at intervals, roll it, and place it over the hole.

Bake

  1. Brush the pastry with the beaten egg and bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

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. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Tomato + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,719 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef steak
Provides the main meat body and rich savory flavor when stewed slowly.
Ox kidney
Adds deep, meaty flavor and a firm, chewy texture to the filling.
Hard boiled eggs
Give a firm, sliced-egg texture and visual contrast inside the pie.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and gentle acidity that brightens the rich meat filling.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a gravy that binds the filling.
Beaten egg
Promotes browning and a glossy golden finish on the pastry.

The step that matters

Stew the meat gently and covered. Slow, gentle simmering in covered liquid breaks down the connective tissue in steak and kidney, making them tender. Boiling hard toughens the meat and can leave the gravy unevenly thickened.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, egg, tomato, mushroom, pepper, flour. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipes