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Mutton Kidneys, Stewed, with Wine
Slice two veal or four sheep's kidneys, and fry them in a little butter until nicely browned on both sides. Drain them from the butter, put them into a clean saucepan, and pour over them a quarter of a pint of champagne, sherry, or any light wine. Add a little salt and cayenne, a table-spoonful of ketchup, and a table-spoonful of good stock, and simmer very gently until tender. Serve as hot as possible. The relative proportions of wine and gravy may be reversed in this recipe, if preferred. The kidneys are very good indeed if stewed in gravy flavoured with wine. Time, about a quarter of an hour. Probable cost, exclusive of the wine, 1s. Sufficient for two or three persons.
A quick sauté-then-braise for kidneys, and the timing is the whole game. Two practical translations are needed: the wine measure and the word "ketchup".
- A quarter of a pintIn this British book that is 5 fl oz, about 142 ml — a little over half a US cup. (A gill, in general British usage of the period, means the same quantity.)
- Ketchup means mushroom ketchupIn Victorian British usage, unqualified "ketchup" is generally mushroom or walnut ketchup: a thin, dark, salty, intensely savoury condiment. Tomato ketchup would make this sweet and pink. Mushroom ketchup is still sold; a spoonful of Worcestershire sauce or a dab of anchovy paste with a little soy is the nearest substitute.
- Don't let it get past tenderKidney goes from tender to rubbery quickly, and "about a quarter of an hour" is the outer limit for sliced sheep's kidney. Simmer at a bare tremble and start testing at five minutes; the slices should still give slightly. If they tighten and squeak against the spoon, they have gone.
- Preparing the kidneysHalve lengthwise, snip out the white core and any fat, and peel off the fine outer membrane, which shrinks and curls in the pan. Sheep's kidneys need no soaking; if you use veal (calf) kidney, a rinse in cold water is worth it.
- Fry hot, then move themThe instruction to drain the butter and use a clean saucepan is worth following: the frying butter is greasy and may carry browned milk solids that do the wine sauce no favours. Brown the slices fast in a hot pan so the outsides colour before the insides overcook.
- The wineThe recipe leaves it open: champagne, sherry, or any light wine. Any dry white works; sherry gives a heavier, nuttier result. Sweet wine is wrong for this.
- Reversing the proportionsThe recipe's own variant — mostly stock with wine as flavouring — gives a rounder, less sharp sauce, and is the more forgiving version.
- Yield and servingTwo to three as a light dish. Serve on toast or with plain rice or mash; the sauce is scant and wants something to sit on. The book does say to serve it as hot as possible, and hot plates help — kidney fat congeals fast.
Kidneys were a breakfast and supper food in the Victorian house rather than a dinner dish: cheap and quick over a small fire. Cassell's gives the probable cost as one shilling exclusive of the wine, and the book carefully offers a version where wine is only a flavouring in the gravy. The airy suggestion of champagne alongside "any light wine" is characteristic of these late-century household dictionaries. Mushroom ketchup, the seasoning assumed here, was the standard English bottled savoury before tomato ketchup displaced the name; it appears throughout Victorian cookery as the shortcut to depth in a sauce made in a quarter of an hour.