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Fruit (Apricots cherries currants) (II)
Apricots, cherries, currants, gooseberries, melons, pears, pineapples raspberries, rhubarb, strawberries. "Kickshaws and dainties fit for kings Upon the table spread." -OLD BALLAD, KALE BROSE.
ALE (A Scotch Recipe.)- INGREDIENTS for soup for 10 persons.-Half an ox-head or cow- BROSE. heel, a teacupful of toasted oatmeal, salt to taste, 2 handfuls of greens, 3 quarts of water. AVERAGE Cost, 8d. per quart.
Make a broth of the ox-head or cow-heel, and boil it till oil , floats on the top of the liquor, then boil the greens, shred, in it. Put the oatmeal, with a little salt, into a basin and mix with it quickly a teacupful of the fat broth: it should not run into one doughy mass, but form knots. Stir it into the whole, give one boil and serve very hot.
TIME.-4 hours.
SEASONABLE all the year, but more suitable in winter. Kegeree. INGREDIENTS. Any cold fish, 1 teacupful of boiled rice, 1 oz. of butter, 1 teaspoonful of mustard, 2 hard-boiled eggs, salt and cayenne to taste. AVERAGE COST, 4d.
Pick the fish carefully from the bones, flake it, chop the eggs, mix with the other ingredients and serve very hot. The quantities may be varied according to the amount of fish used.
KIDNEYS, BROILED.
TIME. hour after the rice is boiled.
SEASONABLE at any time.
Kidneys, Broiled. (A Breakfast or Supper Dish). - INGREDIENTS.-Sheep kidneys, pepper and salt to taste. AVERAGE CosT, 3d. each.
Ascertain that the kidneys are fresh and cut them open, very evenly, lengthwise, down to the root, for should one half be thicker than the other, one would be underdone whilst the other would be dried, but do not separate them; skin them and pass. a skewer under the white part of each half to keep them flat and broil over a nice clear fire, placing the inside downwards; turn KIDNEYS. them when done enough on one side and cook them on the other. Remove the skewers, place the kidneys on a very hot dish, season with pepper and salt and put a tiny piece of butter in the middle of each; put them on buttered toast, serve very hot and quickly and send very hot plates to table.
TIME.- 6 to 8 minutes.
SEASONABLE at any time.
KIDNEYS, FRIED.
Three separate dishes sit here: a Scottish kale brose, a kedgeree of cold fish and rice, and broiled sheep's kidneys. Each has one point that decides whether it works.
- Ox-head and cow-heelBoth are collagen-heavy cuts and neither is easy to buy domestically today. Half an ox-head is impractical for a domestic pot; 2 to 3 lb of shin plus a split trotter gives a comparably gelatinous broth in the 3 quarts of water specified.
- "Till oil floats on the top"This is the visual cue that the broth is ready and, more importantly, that there is enough rendered fat to scald the oatmeal. Skim off a teacupful of that fat-rich liquor rather than lean stock from underneath.
- The knots are the whole point of broseToasted oatmeal is mixed with hot fatty broth so quickly that it forms loose lumps, not a paste. Use pinhead or medium oatmeal, toast it dry in a pan until it smells nutty, and stir with a fork for a few seconds only. Overmix and you have porridge.
- GreensKale is the traditional green for a dish called kale brose, though the recipe only says 'greens' — shred it finely and give it 10 to 15 minutes in the broth.
- Kedgeree needs reheating, not just mixingThe instructions mix cold fish, cold rice and butter and say "serve very hot," leaving out the step. Heat the mixture through in a covered pan or a moderate oven, 350F, until it reaches 165F throughout, then fold in the chopped egg at the end so it does not break up.
- A teacupfulIn Victorian usage this is usually reckoned at somewhere between a quarter and a third of a pint, so roughly a cup of cooked rice — enough for two as a breakfast dish. The mustard is most likely English mustard powder rather than a prepared paste.
- Kidneys: split, do not separateCutting lengthwise to the root and skewering flat is what stops the thick end from staying raw while the thin end dries out. Metal skewers pushed crosswise through both halves work; soak wooden ones first.
- "Broil" means grillA very hot grill or a ridged pan stands in for the clear fire. Six to eight minutes total, cut side down first, leaves them faintly pink at the centre, which is how they stay tender — past that they turn grainy and bitter.
- YieldThe brose is stated for 10 as written. Allow two kidneys per person for breakfast.
Brose is the Scots term for meal — usually oatmeal — moistened with a hot liquid rather than boiled into porridge, and kale brose is its winter form, made with the fat broth from a long-simmered head or heel and the kale that stood in the yard through the frosts. The oatmeal is mixed in a basin with a teacupful of hot fat broth, stirred in and given one boil, so it swells into knots. Kedgeree on the same page shows the other end of the Victorian breakfast table: an Anglo-Indian adaptation of khichri, the South Asian dish of rice and pulses, which returning households reworked into a way of using up cold cooked fish, with hard-boiled egg and mustard standing in for the original spicing. Broiled kidneys round out the trio of savoury breakfast and supper dishes that Beeton's readers expected to find under a single letter of the alphabet.