A “Traditional” Steak and Kidney recipe

I have to say that this is not one of my mother's, in fact it's not a family recipe at all!  It's basically the filling of a pudding without the suet pastry.

Take a pound of steak and kidney. Roughly chop an onion and two cloves of garlic. Layer them in a stone crock dish. Traditionally, you would roll the diced steak and kidney in seasoned flour, then layer them in the crock, and then pour in enough boiling water to almost cover the mixture. That makes a tasty enough meal. However, I'd rather add half a pint of gravy, made by adding half a pint of boiling water to a dessertspoon of gravy granules, a beef Oxo cube crumbled and a tablespoon of tomato puree, then stir thoroughly and add Henderson's Relish (or Worcester Sauce if you have the misfortune not to come from Sheffield). The liquid should come almost up to the top of the meat mix. Cover and cook in a very slow oven (about Gas 1 or 2) for at least 3 hours. If you wish, you could cook it in a slow cooker for over 6 hours. Half an hour before serving, you may like to add a few halved or quartered mushrooms.

If you want to have pastry with it, a nice suet pastry could make a pie crust. It doesn't need to be steamed, roll it out thin and use it as you would short pastry. Add the filling after it has been cooked, moisten with the gravy, top with suet pastry and eggwash. Cook in a medium hot oven (about Gas 7) for 45 minutes.

To make a Steak and Ale pie, instead of the gravy mix, just pour half a pint of a well-flavoured beer into the mix, and add a bayleaf to counter the bitterness of the hops which becomes more pronounced on cooking. Guinness works well or you could use a good bitter such as Black Sheep.

It's traditional to serve it with mashed potatoes and carrots, but a baked potato also goes down really well with it. Chips are overkill, in my opinion. But you've got to have something to mop up all that yummy gravy!