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Kidneys, Devilled
Split eight kidneys, and put a little melted butter in the hollow of each. Mix a tea-spoonful of made mustard with one of minced parsley, and season with pepper and salt. Spread the mixture over the kidneys, then a layer of bread-crumbs, and bake in a moderate oven for fifteen minutes, basting every few minutes with a little butter. Dish up on round croutons, and garnish with parsley.
A Victorian breakfast dish that survives largely unchanged, though the timing needs attention and the quantities want scaling up.
- Which kidneysUnqualified "kidneys" in a book of this period most likely means lamb's or sheep's kidneys, about 2 oz each; veal or beef kidney would usually have been named. Eight lamb kidneys serves four at breakfast.
- Preparation the recipe assumesKidneys came from the butcher encased in suet, which had to be pulled away; supermarket kidneys are usually already trimmed. Split them lengthwise almost through so they open flat, and snip out the white core and any tubes with scissors.
- Moderate ovenConventionally about 350F. If you want the crumbs to colour properly in a short time, 400F will do it faster, though the actual temperature of a coal range on any given shelf is not recoverable.
- Fifteen minutes is too longThis is the point that matters. Kidney protein tightens and turns liver-grey and rubbery once it is cooked through; it wants to stay faintly pink inside. Six to eight minutes at 400F is enough for lamb kidneys of this size. Check by pressing — they should still give slightly.
- Made mustardPrepared mustard as opposed to dry powder — in an English kitchen of this date, English mustard mixed from Durham or Colman's powder with water. It is much hotter than Dijon, so a teaspoon of English is roughly two of Dijon in effect.
- A teaspoonful for eight kidneysTaken literally the seasoning is thin. A tablespoon of mustard and a good handful of parsley suit modern taste, plus cayenne, which many other devilled recipes include.
- CroutonsHere croutons are rounds of bread fried in butter or clarified fat, cut to sit under each kidney, not the small dice sold for salads. Cut them with a pastry cutter slightly wider than a split kidney so they catch the butter and juices.
- BastingButter brushed on before baking will largely do the work. If you baste, use clarified butter or the crumbs will scorch where the milk solids sit.
Devilling — coating meat with mustard, cayenne and pepper and browning it hard — was a fixture of English cookery from the early nineteenth century onward, and "devil" as a culinary verb is recorded well before the sherry-and-kidney breakfast dishes of the late Victorian house. Kidneys suited it: they were cheap offal, they cooked in minutes, and their strong flavour stood up to the mustard. The dish belongs to the hot-plate breakfast or the after-theatre supper, both occasions where something savoury and fiercely seasoned was wanted quickly, and it is often said that devilling began as a way of reviving cold roast meat rather than cooking fresh.