Rump-steak Pie
INGREDIENTS for pie for 6 to 8 persons.-2 lbs. of ruтpsteak, 2 kidneys, seasoning to taste, of salt, cayenne and black pepper, crust, water, the yolk of an egg. AVERAGE COST, 4s.
Have the steaks cut from a rump that has hung a few days, that they may be RUMP-STEAK PUDDING. tender, and be particular that every portion is perfectly sweet. Cut the steaks into pieces about 2 inches long and 1 wide, allowing a small piece of fat to each piece of lean. Cut the kidneys in 7 or 8 pieces, and arrange the meat in layers in a piedish. Between each layer sprinkle a seasoning of salt, pepper, and, when liked, a few grains of cayenne. Fill the dish sufficiently with meat to support the crust, and to give it a nice raised appearance when baked, and not to look flat and hollow. Pour in sufficient water to half fill the dish, and border it with paste (see Pastry); brush it over with a little water, and put on the cover; slightly press down the edges with the thumb, and trim off close to the dish.
Ornament the pie with leaves, or pieces of paste cut in any shape that fancy may direct, brush it over with the beaten yolk of an egg; make a hole in the top of the crust, and bake in a hot oven for about 1½ hour.
TIME. In a hot oven, 1½ hour.
SEASONABLE at any time.
Rump-steak Pudding, Baked.
INGREDIENTS for pudding for 5 or 6 persons.-6 oz. of flour, 2 eggs, not quite 1½ pint of milk, salt to taste , 1 lb. of rump-steaks, 1 kidney, pepper and salt. AVERAGE COST, 2s. 6d.
Cut the steaks into nice square pieces, with a small quantity of fat, and the kidney divide into small pieces.
Make a batter of flour, eggs and milk in the above proportion; lay a little of it at the bottom of a pie-dish; then put in the steaks and kidney, which should be well seasoned with pepper and salt, and pour over the remainder of the batter, and bake for 1½ hour in a brisk but not fierce oven.
TIME.-1 hour.
SEASONABLE at any time.
A plain Victorian meat pie with a single top crust, baked over a half-filled dish of water that becomes the gravy. The main adjustments are oven temperature, the cut of beef, and the fact that steak baked for an hour and a half needs to be either braised first or accepted as well done.
- "A hot oven"Read this as 425-450F (220-230C) for the first 15-20 minutes to set and colour the pastry, then drop to 325-350F (160-180C) for the remainder. Held at 450F for the full 90 minutes the crust will scorch long before the meat is tender.
- The hinge: hung beefMrs Beeton specifies steaks cut from a rump "that has hung a few days, that they may be tender". Beef sold now is often much less aged; if tenderness matters, ask a butcher for dry-aged rump, or use chuck or skirt, which suit long moist cooking.
- KidneysTwo beef kidneys would overwhelm 2 lb of steak by modern taste; the proportion suits lamb or veal kidneys, roughly 8-10 oz in total. Soak them briefly in cold water, trim out the white core thoroughly, and pat dry before layering.
- Water, not stockThe water half-filling the dish draws out the meat juices to make the gravy, and the pastry lid seals the dish. Beef stock gives a richer result, but fill no higher than the halfway mark or the filling will boil up and lift the crust.
- Crust and steam holeShortcrust or rough puff, rolled about 1/4 inch. The border of paste round the rim is there to give the lid something to grip; the recipe brushes it with water before the cover goes on, and keeps the beaten egg yolk for glazing the top. The hole in the top is not decorative -- without it the crust domes and splits.
- Money and yield"4s." is four shillings, the price of the ingredients in Mrs Beeton's day, not a measurement. The pie serves 6 to 8 as written.
- The batter pudding that followsThe second recipe is a separate dish -- essentially a beef-and-kidney toad-in-the-hole. "A brisk but not fierce oven" is around 400F (200C). The instruction says bake 1 1/2 hours while the time line says 1 hour; judge by a set, risen batter and browned top, and check that the steak pieces are cooked through.
The steak-and-kidney pie is a relatively late arrival in English cookery: kidney appears as a partner to beef in pies and puddings mainly from the middle of the nineteenth century, and Beeton's household books did a great deal to fix the pairing in print. The older form was the boiled pudding in a suet crust; the baked pie, with its single lid and its water-made gravy, was the cheaper and quicker version for a household that had an oven or access to a baker's. The care Beeton takes over hanging -- "cut from a rump that has hung a few days" and "perfectly sweet" -- reflects a period before domestic refrigeration, when properly aged beef was the difference between a tender pie and an inedible one. The paste leaves cut "in any shape that fancy may direct" are a small licence in an otherwise severely practical book.