Home › The Principles of Cookery › Roti De Rognons De Veau
Roti De Rognons De Veau
Take kidneys which have been carefully roasted before the fire, chop them up with fat, and mix them with mushrooms cut small and fried in butter, and also with parsley, chives, bay-leaves, and thyme. Season with pepper and salt, and make the chopped kidneys into a paste of the proper consistency for forcemeat with the yolks of some raw eggs. Place thick layers of this on slices of fried bread from which the crust has been cut off. Sprinkle over bread-crumbs mixed with raw eggs. Place the slices of bread thus prepared on a dish, put a hot cover over it, and strew some live cinders on top.
A veal-kidney forcemeat on fried bread, finished with top heat only. The whole dish hangs on that finish: the raw-egg binder has to set and cook through, and in the original that job is done by embers heaped on an inverted cover.
- The cinders, translated"A hot cover... strew some live cinders on top" describes an improvised salamander: a heated iron plate or dome held over the dish so the paste browns without the bread burning. An overhead broiler, or the top of a very hot oven, is the nearest modern equivalent; watch it closely, as it may need only a few minutes.
- Cook the egg, not just the crustThe yolks worked into the forcemeat and the egg brushed over the crumbs must reach a set, firm state, not merely colour. If the top browns before the middle is hot, the paste is too thick or the heat too close.
- Kidneys "roasted before the fire"Veal kidneys were commonly roasted in their surrounding fat. Roast until firm and cooked through, then cool before chopping. Overcooked kidney is said to turn granular, which may keep the paste from binding.
- Preparing the kidneysTrim out the white core and any tubing, and rinse well. Some cooks soak veal kidney in milk or salted water for an hour to soften the ammoniac note; veal is much milder than beef or pork kidney and needs less of this.
- "Chop them up with fat"The suet from around the kidney is probably what is meant, since veal kidney was often sold in its jacket of fat. Butter is a common modern substitute.
- The herbsThe recipe does not say how bay and thyme are handled. Chopping them very fine, or steeping them in the butter with the mushrooms and then removing them, avoids whole bay pieces in the forcemeat, which are unpleasant to bite; chives and parsley go in raw and chopped.
- Consistency"The proper consistency for forcemeat" means it holds a shape on a spoon and does not slump off the croûte. One yolk per 8 oz of chopped kidney is a sensible starting point; add another only if the mixture crumbles.
- Yield and servingThe recipe gives no quantities; two veal kidneys should make paste for several croûtes. Serve at once, while the bread is still crisp underneath.
This belongs to the family of English-French savouries built on a fried croûte, and its French title marks it as borrowed rather than native. The method of finishing with radiant heat from above is older than the gas grill and was done with a salamander, a heavy iron plate or dome heated in the fire and held over the dish; heaping live cinders on an inverted cover, as here, is the domestic version for a kitchen without one. Veal kidney was valued for its mildness and for the firm suet around it, and a dish like this one chops a small quantity fine and spreads it over bread.