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Four Sheep's Kidneys (Equal weight of Kidneys)
Equal weight of Kidneys and lean Beef.
Three pints of Brown Stock.
Two tablespoonfuls of Rice.
This is the ingredient panel for kidney soup as it stood in a professional kitchen's notebook — the method was assumed knowledge and is not given here. What follows fills in the assumptions.
- No method is printedThe entry gives proportions only. In practice the kidneys and beef are cut small, browned in dripping, moistened with the stock and simmered until tender, the rice added toward the end and the whole either sieved or served as is.
- "Equal weight"The beef is matched to the weight of the kidneys, and the heading fixes those at four, so the quantity is not open-ended. Four sheep's kidneys come to roughly 8-10 oz, with the same weight of lean beef (shin or skirt); with three pints of stock that gives four to six servings.
- Three pintsImperial pints of 20 fl oz, so 60 fl oz — about 7 1/4 US cups, or 1.7 litres. An American cook following US pints would be short by a fifth.
- Brown stockBeef bones roasted dark, then simmered long with browned mirepoix; unsalted and unthickened. A good low-sodium beef stock stands in, but it will be lighter in colour and body than what was intended.
- Sheep's kidneysLamb kidneys are the same thing from a younger animal and are what butchers sell now. Split them, snip out the white core and gristle, and soak briefly in cold water or milk; some cookery books of the period recommended blanching older, stronger kidneys first.
- The riceTwo tablespoonfuls is a thickener and a garnish, not a starch course. Long-grain rice added for the last 20 minutes is enough; add it early and it disintegrates into the soup.
- Don't overcook the kidneyKidney toughens and turns grainy with long boiling. If the soup is to be strained or sieved this matters less, but if the meat is served in it, hold back some diced kidney and give it only a few minutes at the end.
Kidney soup was a fixture of British hotel and household cookery, appearing in the repertoire well before the nineteenth century and sitting alongside ox-tail and mock turtle in the brown soup family — dark, meaty, stock-based and thickened lightly rather than creamed. Sheep's kidneys were cheap and plentiful in a period when whole carcasses came into the kitchen and offal was expected to be used; the same organ turned up grilled for breakfast, in steak and kidney pudding, and here as the flavouring for a soup that stretched a small amount of meat across a table. The telegraphic style of the entry is typical of cookery writing of the era, which often set down the proportions and left the procedure to the cook.