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To Stew Beef Kidneys
Cut into pieces and stew in water, with a nice addition of savory herbs, pepper and salt, and a handful flour to thicken the gravy; flavor and color the latter with burnt sugar.--Mrs. H.
A four-line recipe that assumes you know how to handle offal. The hinge is the preparation before the pot: beef kidney carries a strong ammoniacal smell that only trimming and soaking will remove.
- Trim and soak firstSplit the kidney, cut out the white core and all visible fat and membrane, then soak the pieces in cold salted water or milk for an hour or two, changing it once. Skipping this is the difference between savory and acrid.
- Beef kidney, not lambA whole beef kidney typically runs 1 to 2 lb and is much stronger in flavor than the lamb kidneys sold for breakfast dishes. A butcher is the surer source.
- Cooking timeBeef kidney is tough and wants long, gentle simmering, 1 1/2 to 2 hours barely bubbling, until a piece yields to a fork. Hard boiling tightens it, and it is slow to loosen again.
- "A handful flour"Reckon roughly 1/4 to 1/2 cup, depending on the hand. Rather than tipping it into the pot, where it will lump, work it to a paste with a little cold water or soft butter and stir that in near the end.
- Burnt sugarThis is caramel coloring, made by melting sugar in a dry pan until dark brown and bitter, then cautiously adding water to make a syrup. It was the standard nineteenth-century way to darken a pale gravy; a bottled gravy browning or a spoonful of soy does the same work.
- Savory herbsIn books of this period the phrase is usually taken to mean thyme, parsley and bay, often with a little onion, though the recipe does not specify. Kidney also takes well to a spoonful of vinegar or dry sherry stirred in at the end, which cuts the richness.
- YieldOne beef kidney stewed this way serves three or four over rice, toast or mashed potato. The gravy is the point; make enough of it.
Kidney stews belong to the frugal end of the Virginia kitchen, where an animal butchered at home yielded organ meats that had to be used within a day or two and could not be salted down like hams and sides. Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1879) was compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree from contributions by named Virginia housewives, which is why the recipe ends with an initial rather than a byline. The burnt-sugar coloring is a period signature: before commercial gravy brownings and bouillon cubes, a jar of dark caramel syrup kept in the pantry is often said to have been one way a cook gave a thin, pale stew the deep brown appearance that a good gravy was expected to have.