Beef-Steak Pie
INGREDIENTS for good-sized pie.-2 lbs. of buttock steak, 1/4 lb. of ox kidney, pepper, salt and a few minced herbs if liked, 6 oz. of dripping or lard, 1 lb. of flour, sauce. AVERAGE COST, 2s. 6d.
Cut the beef in even square pieces, slice the kidney, freeing it from skin and gristle, and lay them in a pie-dish with a plentiful seasoning of salt and pepper till the dish is full. Pour in a little water and a dessertspoonful of any good sauce; turn a tin over the dish and put in the oven to partly cook the meat while the crust is made. Rub the dripping or lard into the flour, add a teaspoonful of salt, and mix with sufficient water to BEEF-STEAK PIE. make a short crust. Let the dish cool after taking it out of the oven, border it with a narrow strip of the paste, and lay over the crust; ornament it with a paste jagger or fork at the edges and with cut leaves and a flower at the top. Wash over with beaten egg and put in the oven.
TIME.-About hour after putting on the crust.
SEASONABLE at any time.
BEEF, STEWED.
A plain suet-less shortcrust over part-cooked steak and kidney. The original assumes a coal range and a cook who knows what "short crust" means; the numbers below fill in what Mrs Beeton left out.
- Buttock steakThis is top rump or topside — a lean, firm cut from the hind leg. Chuck or braising steak works as well and is more forgiving; avoid anything sold as "frying steak", which turns dry in a long bake.
- The pre-cook is the hingeThe original gives the filling only the time it takes to make the crust, which will not cook two pounds of steak through. In practice the covered stint wants to run until the meat is nearly done, in a moderate oven, topped up with water if it dries; the longer timing and the temperature are modern suggestions, not Mrs Beeton's.
- Cool before you coverMrs Beeton says to let the dish cool, and she means it. Shortcrust laid on hot meat melts its fat before the oven can set the flour, and the base of the lid goes grey and sodden.
- Oven temperatureThe recipe gives none. As a modern equivalent, a hot oven for the first fifteen minutes to set and colour the crust, then moderate for the remainder. The TIME line, 'About hour after putting on the crust', has plainly lost a word or figure; 'one hour' is the likeliest reading, but 'three-quarters of an hour' cannot be ruled out.
- The pastry proportions6 oz fat to 1 lb flour is a lean, workmanlike crust, appreciably less fat than a modern rich shortcrust. It bakes firm rather than crumbly, which is the point in a pie that has to hold gravy. Beef dripping gives the period flavour; lard is usually reckoned to give a shorter texture.
- "Any good sauce"A dessertspoonful of a bottled brown sauce — Worcestershire, mushroom ketchup, or a commercial steak sauce. It is there for savour and colour, not liquid.
- KidneyA quarter pound to two pounds of beef is a light hand; more than that and the pie takes on the strong flavour many modern eaters dislike. Soak the sliced kidney in cold water or milk for half an hour and drain if you want it milder.
- Liquid and the funnelLiquid -- 'a little water' is not much; the meat should not be swimming, or a flooded pie lifts its lid. A pie funnel or a slit in the crust to let steam escape is a modern addition — the original calls for neither.
- YieldA "good-sized pie" here serves six generously, or four with second helpings, in a deep 2-pint dish.
Steak and kidney pie is a comparatively late arrival in the English repertoire — beefsteak pies and puddings appear through the eighteenth century, but kidney seems only to have become a standard partner in the middle of the nineteenth, and the combination is generally traced to that period rather than to any single cook or recipe. Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management (1861) and the many condensed cookery volumes issued under her name afterwards fixed it as a fixture of the British kitchen. The costing here — 2s. 6d. for a pie — is characteristic of the Beeton method, which put a price on every dish so a mistress could check her cook's housekeeping. So is the decoration: pastry leaves, a flower at the top, an egg wash and crimped edges made with a jagger, the small ornaments of a proper baked pie in a household that judged the table by its appearance.