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Kidney Pudding
Cut the hard core out of the centre of an ox kidney, and divide the meat into pieces an inch square. Season these with pepper and salt; and, if liked, add an onion and two ounces of beef suet, finely minced. Make some pastry, with three-quarters of a pound of flour, half a pound of good dripping, and as much water as is required. Roll it out, line a pudding-basin with it, and put in the slices of meat. Pour over them a tea-cupful of cold water, place a cover of pastry on the top, pinch the edges securely, tie the pudding in a floured cloth, and plunge it into boiling water. Boil quickly. Turn the pudding out when cooked enough, and serve very hot. Time, three hours to boil. Probable cost, 1s. 6d. Sufficient for four persons.
A plain boiled suet-crust pudding of the sort that fed Victorian households cheaply. The instructions are sound; what needs translating is the crust, the vessel and the way the pudding is sealed.
- Preparing the kidneyOx kidney has a tough white core and a thin outer membrane, both of which should come away before cutting. Many cooks soak the pieces in cold salted water or milk for an hour and drain them, which takes the edge off the ammoniac smell the recipe does not mention.
- The pastry is a dripping crustThree-quarters of a pound of flour to half a pound of dripping is a very rich ratio by modern standards; a standard suet or dripping crust runs closer to 2:1 by weight, so 12 oz flour to 6 oz fat. Chill the dripping hard and grate or rub it in, add a good half teaspoon of salt, and bring it together with cold water into a soft, not sticky, dough.
- A tea-cupfulIn this period a teacup is usually reckoned at about a quarter of a pint, roughly 150 ml or two-thirds of a US cup. That is enough to make gravy inside the pudding without waterlogging the crust; do not fill the basin with liquid.
- Basin sizeThis quantity suits a 1.5- to 2-pint (about 850 ml to 1.1 litre) pudding basin. Grease it well, line it with two-thirds of the pastry rolled to about a quarter-inch, and keep the remaining third for the lid.
- Covering itThe floured cloth was standard before greaseproof paper. A pleated round of baking parchment and foil tied under the rim does the same job and is far easier to handle. If you do use a cloth, wring it out in boiling water, flour it heavily, and tie it tight or water will get in.
- Boiling versus steaming"Boil quickly" means keep the water at a genuine rolling boil, with the basin standing on a trivet or folded cloth so it does not touch the pan base, and the water two-thirds up the sides. Top up with boiling water as it evaporates — if the pan boils dry the crust scorches and the basin can crack. A steamer over simmering water for the same three hours gives the same result with less minding.
- Turning it outLet the pudding stand five minutes before inverting, or the crust may collapse. Serve at once with the gravy that has formed inside; kidney puddings go leaden as they cool.
- Yield and seasoningFour servings, as stated, and generous ones. Ox kidney is strongly flavoured on its own — the optional onion is worth including, and a spoonful of flour tossed with the seasoned meat thickens the liquor into gravy.
Boiled puddings in a cloth are often said to be a characteristically English technique, and by the nineteenth century the savoury version had settled into a standard household formula: a suet or dripping crust lining a basin, cheap cuts inside, hours in the copper. Ox kidney was among the cheapest offal on the butcher's slab, which is the point of the entry — Cassell's gives the probable cost as 1s 6d for four people. Kidney alone, without steak, marks this as the economical end of the family; the steak and kidney pudding that became the famous dish is the same construction with the expensive ingredient added. The dripping crust rather than a beef-suet one is another economy, dripping being the free by-product of every roast.</p>