steak & kidney pie

Succulent chunks of beef steak mixed with beef kidneys in a rich beef and onion broth and encased in golden pastry. It must have been hard for Morrissey to relinquish his love of a good steak and kidney pie when he became a vegetarian. This is a pie so beloved that it even has its own Cockney rhyming slang names – fancy a bit of the ole Kate and Sidney, anyone? How about a piece of Snake and Pygmy? And in reverse, steak and kidney pie is rhyming slang for “fly”. This pie is a staple of English cooking and the recipe remains much the same whether you are reading Mrs Beeton or Delia Smith. The biggest change is that where we now use mushrooms to give the dish extra flavour, originally oysters would have been added. Oysters were the food of the common people, cheap and easy to obtain. Some things have changed about English cuisine!