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Steak and Kidney Pudding
I 1/2 lbs. lean beef 3 sheep's kidneys 1/2 lb. (2 cups) flour 1 teaspoonful baking powder Salt and pepper 1 cupful chopped suet Water or buttermilk 2 tablespoonfuls flour
The page as printed gives only the ingredient list; the method that would have followed it is missing. What follows is what the list itself tells a cook, and where modern practice differs.
- The list is incompleteThere are no instructions here at all, only quantities. Anyone wanting to actually cook this should work from a full steak and kidney pudding method; the notes below explain what the ingredients imply.
- Suet crust proportionsTwo cups flour to one cup chopped suet with a teaspoon of baking powder is a standard suet paste, mixed with just enough cold water or buttermilk to make a firm, slightly tacky dough. The baking powder does the lifting whichever liquid is used; buttermilk contributes flavour and tenderness.
- Suet itselfBeef suet from the kidney fat is the traditional fat and is still sold shredded in Britain. In the US ask a butcher for kidney suet and chop or grate it while very cold, or use frozen grated beef fat; vegetable shortening gives a softer, less flaky crust.
- Sheep's kidneysThree lamb's kidneys is the modern equivalent and they are usually available frozen or by order. Halve them, snip out the white core, and soak briefly in salted water or milk to temper the strong ammoniacal smell.
- The two tablespoons of flourThis is listed separately from the crust flour, and in puddings of this kind such a quantity is dredged over the diced beef and kidney with the seasoning, so the meat juices thicken into gravy inside the sealed pudding rather than running thin.
- Cooking timeA steamed suet pudding of this size wants three and a half to four hours over gently simmering water, the basin covered with pleated paper or foil and the water topped up as it boils away. Cutting the time short leaves the crust pale and doughy; there is no way to hurry it.
- YieldOne and a half pounds of beef with the kidneys and crust fills a one and a half to two quart basin and serves four to six as a main course.
Steak and kidney pudding is a British boiled-pudding dish, and the suet crust is the older half of the story: puddings tied in a floured cloth and boiled with the dinner were a staple of English cookery long before beef and kidney became the standard filling in the nineteenth century. Kidney was cheap offal that repaid slow, enclosed cooking, and the sealed crust turned a small quantity of stewing beef into a substantial meal with its own gravy.