Steak & Kidney Pudding

A classic winter warmer, this recipe produces a delicious, beast of a meat pudding with pleanty of meat and a delicious gravy.

Ingredients

For the pastry:
170g beef suet
340g self raising flour
270ml water
13g salt
For the filling:
480g beef steak
180g lamb kidney
130g onion (1)
60g carrot (1)
1 clove of garlic
1 sprig of thyme
1 bay leaf
75ml red wine
250ml of beef stock
1 tablespoon of olive oil

Preparation Time: 35 minutes
Cooking Time: 5 hours
Serves: 6

Method

Peel and dice the onion and carrot, and peel and finely chop the garlic.
Heat the oil in a pan and cook the onion and carrot for 2 minutes, then add the garlic and cook for a further 3 minutes before removing them to a plate to cool.
Into the same pan, add the wine, thyme and bay leaf and boil until the liquid has reduced by half, then add the beef stock and continue to boil until it has reduced by half again.
Remove any fat from the steak and then chop it into roughly 2cm cubes. Remove the membrane from the kidneys, chop out the white core with a pair of scissors and chop into roughly 1cm cubes.
Mix the steak, kidney, onion, carrot and garlic together and season well with salt & pepper.
Using a knife, mix together the flour, suet and salt, then add the water and continue stirring with the knife until it comes together. Then turn it out onto a floured work surface and knead it gently until it forms a ball of soft, elastic pastry. Cut off about a quarter of the pastry and set it aside (this is for the lid).
Roll out the remaining pastry into a circle about ½cm thick.
Grease the inside of a pudding basin with vegetable oil and put a circle of greaseproof paper the size of its base in the bottom.
Carefully fold the circle of pastry in half and then half again to form a triangle and place it into the pudding basin with the point of the triangle at the bottom.
Gently unfold the pastry and mold it to fit the basin (you will be left with a large flap of pastry protruding into the basin, simply cut this off with a pair of scissors and mold the two cut edges together to seal it). Lightly dust the inside with flour.
Roll out the pastry (saved earlier for the lid) to form a circle about 5cm bigger than the top of the pudding basin and a thickness of about ½cm.
Tip the meat and vegetable mix into the lined pudding basin and, after removing the bay leaf and thyme sprig from the gravy, pour it in.
Moisten the rim of the pastry inside the pudding basin with a little water, place the lid on top and seal it together by pinching all the way around the edge.
Using a knife, cut off the excess pastry, leaving a 1cm rim. Then fold in the edges.
Place a pleated square of greaseproof paper, larger than the pudding basin, on the top followed by a pleated square of tin foil, fold the edges down and tie it securely with a doubled piece of string. Then trim off the excess greaseproof paper and tin foil.
Place a trivet in the bottom of a large pan, put the pudding basin on top of the trivet and fill the pan with water until it comes to halfway up the side of the basin, taking care not to pour any water onto the pudding. (Tip: take a long piece of kitchen foil and fold it lengthways to about the width of the base of the pudding basin, then put the foil underneath it. This acts as a sling to help with getting the basin in and out of the pan.)
Bring the water to a gentle simmer and steam the pudding for 5 hours, frequently topping up the water (it can be very easy to forget about it and allow it to boil dry, don’t do this).
Remove the pudding from the pan and take off the string, foil and greaseproof.
To serve, cut out slices directly from the bowl.
(Do not be tempted to turn out the whole pudding onto a plate, it will look spectacular until you cut out a slice, at which point, all the gravy and filling will come flooding out, spilling off the edge of the plate, probably onto your finest silk tablecloth.)

Useful Information

Can it be frozen? Yes. It will need 24 hours defrosting in the fridge and take 2 hours of steaming to reheat it.
Can it be prepared in advance? Yes, it can be finished up to 3 days in advance. Reheat it by steaming it for 2 hours.
Will leftovers be nice? Yes, for up to 3 days.

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Steak & Kidney Pudding

Ingredients

Method

Useful Information

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