Field note 02 of 74 IN THE KITCHEN
Steak and kidney, the proper way
The pie had a reason. How to get kidney soft and mild, in one slow pot.
Modern Savage
Steak and kidney pie was not a coincidence. For a few hundred years the offal came home with the meat and the cook found a use for it.
Kidney went into the pie because it was there and it was cheap.
Kidney puts people off because it's usually cooked in a hurry with the core left in. Done slowly, it goes soft and mild and disappears into the gravy.
Try this: steak and kidney, one slow pot
Ask the butcher for 600g of stewing steak and 200g of lamb's kidney. Lamb's is milder than beef.
Halve the kidneys and snip out the white core with scissors. Cut into small pieces.
Brown the steak in batches in a heavy pan. Soften a sliced onion in the same pan.
Add the kidney, a spoon of flour, 500ml of beef stock and a bay leaf. Cover and cook very gently for about two hours, until the steak is tender.
Eat it as a stew with mash, or put a pastry lid on it and bake at 200°C (400°F) for 30 minutes.
Kidney is in Modern Savage because we use the whole animal, nose to tail. Grass-fed beef kidney sits beside the liver, heart and spleen in every scoop.
