Steak and kidney is a classic English savoury dish combining cubes of braising beef with pieces of kidney — usually ox kidney — cooked slowly with onions in a rich brown gravy. The mixture is served as a pie with a pastry lid, or as a steamed suet pudding with the filling enclosed in suet crust. Long, gentle cooking is essential: it tenderises the tough beef and mellows the strong flavour of the kidney. The dish was a staple of pubs, school dinners, and home cooking through the twentieth century, valued as cheap, filling, and warming. Modern versions sometimes add mushrooms, ale, or mustard to the gravy, but the beef-and-kidney pairing remains the heart of it.