Home › The Principles of Cookery › SHEEP'S KIDNEYS, BROILED (M. Ude's recipe)
SHEEP'S KIDNEYS, BROILED (M. Ude's recipe)
Take some kidneys that have been kept for a while, cut them in two, and remove the thin skin that covers them, use a small skewer to keep them open, in imitation of two shells; powder them over with a little pepper and salt, dip them into a little melted butter, and broil them just as you are going to serve up. Broil first the side that you have cut open; when you broil the other side, the whole of the gravy issues to the upper part. Mind when you take them off the fire that the gravy does not drop off. Have some parsley chopped very fine and mixed with fresh butter, the juice of a lemon, pepper, and salt; put a little of the mixture over each kidney, and send up to table in a hot dish. N.B.--Kidneys are an excellent breakfast for sportsmen, but are seldom sent up for dinner. They must be eaten directly, as they lose their goodness by waiting. They have also the disadvantage of being uneatable if they are too much done; and he who cannot eat meat underdone should not have them at his table.
A two-minute dish that depends entirely on timing and on not losing the juices. Ude's warning is the whole recipe: a kidney cooked through is a kidney ruined.
- "Kept for a while"In Ude's day offal was hung briefly to mellow. Do not attempt this at home: buy lamb kidneys as fresh as you can find them, use them the same day, and reject any with a strong ammoniacal smell.
- TrimmingHalve lengthwise through the core, peel off the transparent membrane, and snip out the white gristly centre with scissors. Any membrane left on contracts in the heat and curls the kidney shut.
- The skewerA short metal or soaked wooden skewer run crosswise through both halves holds them flat and open, so they cook evenly and sit cut-side up like the two shells he describes. Without it they cup and the butter runs out.
- Heat and timeBroil under a preheated element on the top shelf, or over a very hot grill: a couple of minutes on the cut side, two or three on the rounded side, though Ude gives no times. They should be springy with a rosy centre. Overcooked they turn grainy and tough.
- Cut side firstHis reason is sound as he gives it: once the cut face has been broiled, the kidney sits cut-side up while the rounded side takes the heat, so the juices collect in the hollow rather than dripping into the fire. Lift them cut-side up and keep them level to the plate.
- The parsley butterThis is maitre d'hotel butter: soften unsalted butter, work in finely chopped parsley, lemon juice, salt and pepper, and chill it until firm. A coin of it on each hot kidney melts into the collected gravy and makes the sauce.
- QuantityTwo lamb kidneys a head is the usual allowance for a breakfast or savoury course, three if it is the main item. Ox kidney is too tough for so quick a treatment, and pig kidney is stronger in flavour.
- ServingWarm the dish thoroughly and serve the moment they leave the fire, with toast or fried bread to catch the butter. They will not hold.
Louis Eustache Ude was one of the most quoted French cooks working in England in the early nineteenth century: chef to the Earl of Sefton, author of The French Cook (1813), and later in charge of the kitchens at Crockford's gambling club in St James's, where late-night and early-morning eating was the business of the house. Broiled kidneys belonged to the English breakfast and the supper tray rather than the dinner table, cooked to order in minutes for men coming in from shooting or going home from the tables. Cassell's compilers drew on him partly for the authority of his name and partly because his prose carried the flat professional judgement -- eat them at once, or do not have them at all -- that an anonymous house recipe could not.