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Beef Kidney, to Fry
Trim and cut the kidney in slices; season them with salt and pepper, and dredge well with flour; fry on both side, and when done, lift them out, empty the pan and make a gravy for them with a small piece of butter, one dessertspoonful flour, pepper, salt, and a cup of boiling water. Shake these around and give them a minute's simmering; add a little tomato or mushroom catsup, lemon juice, vinegar, or any good sauce to give it a flavor. Minced herbs are to many tastes an improvement to this dish, to which a small quantity of onion may be added when it is liked.--Mrs. A.M.D.
A quick pan-fry with a pan gravy built in the same skillet. The one thing the original assumes you already know is how to prepare the kidney itself.
- Trim means more than trimSplit the kidney and cut out the white core and any fat and membrane, then slice thin — about a quarter inch. Many cooks soak the slices 30 minutes in cold salted water or milk and pat them dry; wet kidney will steam rather than brown.
- Fast heat, short timeKidney turns rubbery and bitter with long cooking. Two to three minutes a side in a hot pan, until just pink at the centre, is the hinge of the whole dish.
- DessertspoonfulA dessertspoon is two teaspoons — about two-thirds of a tablespoon of flour for a cup of liquid, giving a thin gravy rather than a thick sauce.
- "Empty the pan"Pour off the frying fat but leave the browned residue; that fond is where the flavour is. The butter and flour then go in to make a quick roux in the same pan.
- Catsup, 1879 senseTomato catsup of the period was thinner, sharper and less sweet than modern ketchup, and mushroom catsup was a dark, salty seasoning liquid (some period versions include anchovy, others do not). Worcestershire sauce or a spoonful of mushroom ketchup from a British aisle is closer in spirit than squeeze-bottle ketchup.
- Herbs and onionParsley and thyme suit kidney; if adding onion, mince it fine and soften it in the butter before the flour goes in, or it will stay raw in a one-minute simmer.
- YieldOne beef kidney runs roughly 1 to 2 lb and will serve three or four as a main course with toast, rice or mashed potato.
Beef kidney was cheap protein in a period when a household that bought a whole animal, or shopped from a butcher who did, was expected to use all of it. Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1879), compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree from contributions by named Virginia housewives — this one signed only with initials, as many are — sits squarely in that economy: organ meats, cold-meat rehashes and made-over dishes appear alongside terrapin and beaten biscuit. The technique here is essentially English, a close cousin of the kidney cookery on the Victorian breakfast sideboard, and the list of finishing flavourings is a fair inventory of what a well-stocked Southern larder of the 1870s held: bottled tomato and mushroom catsups, vinegar, lemon, and "any good sauce." Beef kidney is stronger-flavoured, tougher and larger than lamb's, which is why it is sliced rather than split and grilled.