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Kidneys, Stewed
Fry the desired number of kidneys very slowly on both sides, in a little butter with a minced shallot, until half-cooked. Put them into a stewpan with half a pint of good rich thickened gravy, and the liquor, etc., from the frying-pan. Stew very slowly for fifteen minutes, and serve with sippets of toast.
A supper-dish shorthand typical of Cassell's: no quantities, no species of kidney named, and a sauce assumed to be standing ready in the larder. The whole thing hinges on heat control.
- The hinge: never let it boilKidney protein tightens and turns to rubber the moment the liquid bubbles. Hold the stewpan at a bare shiver, around 170-180F, for the full fifteen minutes, and the meat stays tender and pink at the centre.
- Which kidneysUnqualified "kidneys" in a British book of this date usually means sheep or lamb kidneys, sometimes veal. Allow two lamb kidneys per person, or one veal kidney for two to three. Ox kidney is coarser and is generally better suited to a long braise.
- Preparation the book assumesSkin off the membrane, halve lengthways, and cut out the white core with scissors. Any suet still attached should be trimmed away or it will make the gravy greasy.
- Half a pintThis is an imperial half-pint, 10 fl oz, or about 1 1/4 US cups. Enough to just cover four to six halved lamb kidneys in a small pan.
- "Good rich thickened gravy"A brown sauce from the stockpot, roux-thickened. A decent modern stand-in is well-reduced beef or veal stock thickened with a little beurre manie; a splash of sherry or Madeira at the end is period-appropriate.
- Half-cooked in the panTwo minutes a side over gentle heat in butter is enough. You want colour and rendered juices, not a cooked interior, since the stewpan finishes the job.
- SippetsSmall triangles or fingers of bread, toasted or fried in butter, arranged around the dish. They go on at the last moment or they go soft.
- ServingA breakfast or savoury dish rather than a main course. The recipe gives no yield -- it says simply "the desired number of kidneys" -- but the half-pint of gravy suits two to three servings, with rice, mashed potato or plain toast to take up the sauce.
Kidneys occupied a fixed place in the Victorian and Edwardian breakfast sideboard, usually devilled or grilled, and in the late-supper repertoire alongside the savoury. Cassell's New Dictionary of Cookery, a late-nineteenth/early-twentieth-century successor to Cassell's earlier Dictionary of Cookery, was compiled for households running a cook rather than for solo cooks, and could take for granted the thing this recipe leans on hardest: a pot of thickened brown gravy already made and sitting in the larder, which may be why no sauce method is given. The word sippet, usually explained as a diminutive of "sop" though its origin is not certain, is far older than the book and had been used for small pieces of bread served with broth or gravy since at least the sixteenth century. Offal of this kind was cheap, quick and thought strengthening.