"...not too much kidney...just enough to give it that touch of bite...and lashings of steak, oooh, and it's good steak too!...ooh." - from Jeeves and Wooster, Season 1: The Hunger Strike.
Is it possible we watch way to much Jeeves and Wooster? Perhaps it's a sign, that after the 'teenth time of watching Tuppy Glossup describe Chef Anatole's masterly Steak and Kidney Pie with such mouth watering anticipation, I finally needed to make one.
In keeping with the spirit of Jeeves and Wooster, I decided to use a British recipe for Steak and Kidney pie. I remembered coming across a recipe in Hugh Fearnley Whittingsall's River Cottage Meat Book
, so I ordered some grass fed beef kidney and steak from Lewis Waite Farm. Last week I finally had a chance to thaw them out and work on the pie.
In keeping with the spirit of Jeeves and Wooster, I decided to use a British recipe for Steak and Kidney pie. I remembered coming across a recipe in Hugh Fearnley Whittingsall's River Cottage Meat Book
, so I ordered some grass fed beef kidney and steak from Lewis Waite Farm. Last week I finally had a chance to thaw them out and work on the pie.The thing is this: When we made beef kidneys in culinary school, I could barely stand to taste them. Yet Tuppy Glossup and Mr. Whittingsall managed to convince me that Steak and Kidney pie could be truly delicious. Here I believe, was my first failure in judgment. My second, was perhaps getting frozen instead of fresh kidney. After thawing it out (properly, i.e. in the fridge), I took the kidney out of the package, and started trimming it. The center was still a little frozen, but as I continued to cut, it continued to thaw out. It also began to give off a distinct odor of piss. Not a strong odor, but it was there.
