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Greg's steak and kidney pie
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I used to cook steak and kidney pie relatively frequently when in Germany, but since moving to Australia I never settled on a method. In 2020 I went through a number of iterations, and I'm still not 100% happy. This reflects the status of 22 November 2020. See also comments from 4 September 2012, 14 January 2016, 21 June 2018, 19 May 2019, 13 November 2019 and 21 December 2019.

The traditional way to cook a steak and kidney pie appears to be to put the ingredients in pastry and bake until they're done. That has never worked well for me, so this recipe takes a different approach: first cook the ingredients in a covered pot, then put a filling into individual pots with puff pastry. This can happen much later: the filling freezes well.

And if you want to make one big pie? That should work, but I've never tried it. It would certainly require changes to temperature and time (lower temperature, longer time) to ensure that the filling got hot without burning the crust. Maybe it would be better to pre-heat the filling in such a case.

Ingredients

quantity       ingredient       step
1000 g       beef topside       1
500 g       lamb kidneys       1
120 g       flour       1
100 g       onion       2
1 g       pepper       2
50 g       salt       2
150 ml       water       2
      puff pastry
      shortcut pastry      

Preparation

  1. Clean the kidneys. Cut beef and kidneys into small chunks. Turn individually in flour and put into a casserole:


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  2. Chop onion finely. Add with salt, pepper and water to the casserole and mix well:

     
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    This photo doesn't include the water.

  3. Cover the pot and place in microwave oven. Cook for 5 minutes at 1100 W, then continue in conventional oven for 1 hour, heating from below at 150°.

     
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  4. Allow to cool. At this point you can wait indefinitely: freeze the filling in portions of between 120 g (small) or 220 g (normal). When ready to cook, thaw the portions and continue:

     
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  5. Line the bottom of individual oven-proof pots with shortcrust pastry (here a small pot for 100 g filling and a larger pot for 200 g):

     
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  6. Bake at the bottom of the oven for 10 to 15 minutes at 160° with heat from below. The time depends on the pots. The intention is to partially cook the pastry before filling. This step can be omitted, but the pastry might then not be as firm.

     
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  7. Fill the pots with the filling and cover with puff pastry. This filling is on the dry side; it should be moister:

     

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  8. If desired, coat the pastry with egg yolk to make it brown better:

     
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  9. Bake at 210° in fan-forced oven for 20 to 30 minutes (first two photos) or in an “air fryer” for 7 minutes (second 2 photos):

     
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    If using egg yolk and baking in the oven, cover the pies with aluminium foil for the first 15 minutes:

     
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    If the pies aren't browned enough after this time, place at the top of the oven, raise the temperature to 220° and grill until brown. Care! This can happen very quickly.

     
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  10. Allow to rest for at least 20 minutes, maybe 30, then serve:

     
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    Accompany with carrots and peas.

Pasties in “air fryer”

I've tried cooking them in an “air fryer” on a number of occasions, but on 17 February 2024 I tried them as “pasties”:

 
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The big one is too big and not thick enough. But the real issue is the underside:

 
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I'm not sure that there's a way around that.


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