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MUTTON KIDNEYS, FRIED (another way)
Proceed as before directed for broiling, but put the kidneys into a frying-pan with an ounce of butter, and a little pepper sprinkled over them. When done on one side, turn for an equal time on the other. Remove to a hot dish, add pepper, cayenne, salt, and a little sauce (Harvey's or any other), and pour the gravy from the pan over them. Serve hot on toast or otherwise. Time, seven or eight minutes. Probable cost, 3d. each. Sufficient, allow one to each person.
A Victorian breakfast or savoury dish that depends almost entirely on not overcooking the kidneys. The instruction it refers back to — the broiling method — is the missing half of the recipe.
- "Proceed as before directed"The broiling method it points to would normally mean: strip off the papery membrane, split each kidney lengthways almost through, open it flat like a book and run a skewer across to hold it, and trim the fat and gristle at the hinge. Left in, that gristly core stays chewy.
- Time is the hingeSeven or eight minutes over a modern gas or induction burner will take a lamb's kidney grey and rubbery. In a hot pan they want roughly 1.5 to 2 minutes a side, until browned outside and still faintly pink at the centre; then rest them a minute on the hot dish while you finish the pan.
- Mutton kidneysMutton means an adult sheep, and its kidneys are larger and stronger-flavoured than what butchers now sell as lamb's kidneys. Lamb's kidneys are the direct substitute and cook faster still.
- An ounce of butterTwo tablespoons, or about 30 g. Get it foaming before the kidneys go in — a lukewarm pan leaches juices instead of searing.
- Harvey's sauceA commercial English bottled condiment of the period, anchovy-based and spiced with soy, garlic and cayenne. It is no longer widely available; Worcestershire sauce is the closest thing on a modern shelf, and a mushroom ketchup also fits the intent.
- The pan gravyThere is very little of it. Once the kidneys are out, add a splash of water, stock or sherry to the pan and scrape while it bubbles for a few seconds, then pour over. Kidneys shed liquid as they sit, so tip that back in too.
- Salt timingThe recipe adds salt only at the end, after the kidneys leave the pan. Salting kidneys before they hit the pan is generally said to draw out moisture and hinder browning.
- YieldOne kidney per person suits a Victorian breakfast served alongside several other dishes. As a modern starter or light supper on toast, allow two or three each.
Kidneys belonged to the British breakfast sideboard and to the late-night savoury, both institutions of the well-off Victorian household, and Cassell's gives several methods for them because they were cheap and quick. The bottled "sauce" that finishes the dish is characteristic of the period — Harvey's was one of a crowd of dark, anchovy-and-spice condiments, generally traced to an English inn recipe of the later eighteenth century and sold commercially by the Lazenby firm, alongside rivals such as Worcestershire and various mushroom and walnut ketchups. Adding cayenne and a spiced bottled sauce to grilled or fried offal is what the Victorians meant by "devilling", and the fried kidney sits squarely in that tradition.