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Broiled Kidneys
Plunge some kidneys in boiling water; open them down the centre, but do not separate them; peel and pass a skewer across them to keep them open; pepper, salt, and dip them in melted butter.
Broil them over a clear fire on both sides, doing the cut side first; remove the skewer, have ready some maitre d'hote sauce, viz: butter beaten up with chopped parsley, salt and pepper, and a little lemon juice. Put a small piece in the hollow of each kidney and serve hot.--Mrs. P.
A short, direct nineteenth-century breakfast dish that still works, provided you buy the right kidneys and treat them briefly.
- Which kidneysLamb kidneys are what this suits: small, mild, and quick to cook, two or three per person. Veal kidney can be split the same way but is larger; beef kidney is too strong and too tough for broiling and belongs in a stew.
- The hinge: do not overcookKidneys turn grainy and rubbery the moment they pass medium. Three to four minutes on the cut side, two on the rounded side, and pull them while the centre is still faintly pink.
- "Plunge in boiling water"Read as a brief dip rather than a cooking step: it firms the surface so the membrane peels cleanly and the kidney does not curl. The recipe gives no time, so keep it short; leave them in and you have boiled kidneys.
- Peeling and skeweringStrip the thin outer membrane and snip out the white core at the hinge. Split lengthwise almost through, open like a book, and run a metal skewer crosswise through both halves so they stay flat on the grate.
- "A clear fire"Coals burned down past flame, with no smoke. Under a modern broiler set the rack about four inches from the element and preheat it fully; a ridged cast-iron pan over high heat also does the job.
- Maitre d'hotel sauceIt is compound butter, not a sauce in the modern sense: soften the butter, beat in chopped parsley, salt, pepper and lemon juice, then chill it so a coin of it can be set in the hollow and melt at the table.
- YieldThe original gives no quantities. A workable ratio is about 4 oz butter to a small handful of parsley and the juice of half a lemon, enough to dress eight to twelve lamb kidneys.
- ServingServe the instant the butter goes on, on hot plates with toast to catch the juices. Held warm, kidneys stiffen and weep.
Broiled kidneys belong to the nineteenth-century breakfast and supper table on both sides of the Atlantic, where organ meats were cheap and cooked in minutes. Maitre d'hotel butter -- the name refers to the head steward of a household -- was a common finish for plainly grilled meats. Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1879) was edited by Marion Cabell Tyree from contributions by named Virginia housekeepers, and the terse "--Mrs. P." signature is typical of the book's method: recipes passed between households, written for cooks who already knew what a clear fire looked like and needed only reminding of the order of operations.