Kidneys, Fried
INGREDIENTS. - Kidneys, butter, pepper and salt to taste.
AVERAGE COST, 3d. each.
Cut the kidneys open without quite dividing them, remove the skin and put a small piece of butter in the frying-pan.
When the butter is melted, lay in the kidneys the flat side downwards and fry them for 7 or 8 minutes, turning them when they are half done. Serve on a piece of dry toast, season with pepper and salt and put a small piece of butter in each kidney; pour the gravy from the pan over them, adding a spoonful of sauce, if liked, and serve very hot.
TIME. 7 or 8 minutes.
SEASONABLE at any time.
Kidney Omelette. (A favourite
A breakfast dish stripped to essentials: split kidneys, butter, toast. The whole thing hinges on trimming and on not overcooking.
- Which kidneysBeeton most likely means lamb's or sheep's kidneys, sold whole and roughly the size of a small egg; two or three per person. Ox kidney is tougher and is normally stewed rather than fried; pig's kidney can be fried but is stronger in flavour.
- "Cut open without quite dividing"This is the butterfly cut — slice through the curved outer edge almost to the hinge so the kidney opens flat like a book. A skewer threaded crosswise is a common way of stopping it curling in the pan, though the recipe does not mention one.
- Skin and coreThe recipe says remove the skin but omits the white core. Snip out the pale gristly knot at the centre with scissors; left in, it stays rubbery, and it is commonly blamed for the strongest of the flavour.
- TimingSeven or eight minutes will take split lamb's kidneys well past pink on a modern hob. Note the recipe's time is for the whole cooking, turning halfway — roughly four minutes a side; two or three minutes a side is nearer the mark if you want them faintly rosy at the centre.
- "A spoonful of sauce"Victorian shorthand for a bottled table sauce — Worcestershire, mushroom ketchup or Harvey's. Any of these deglazes the pan and gives the gravy the sharpness the dish expects.
- The toast"Dry toast" means unbuttered. It takes up the pan juices and the butter melting in the kidney cups; use something close-crumbed that will not collapse.
- Cost and yieldThreepence each puts this among the cheaper dishes in the book, though two or three a head was not a trivial sum for a poorer household. Two or three kidneys on one slice of toast would make a single breakfast portion.
Devilled and fried kidneys are often associated with the great Victorian and Edwardian breakfast sideboard, where covered chafing dishes held kidneys, bacon, kedgeree and grilled bones — though that picture belongs more to the large country house than to the middle-class household Beeton addresses. Offal was cheap, quick to cook and did not suffer from being kept warm, which suited such arrangements exactly. Beeton's book is organised for the mistress managing a table, hence the pricing per kidney and the note that they are seasonable at any time — unlike game or shellfish, a butcher's kidney was available all year. The kidney is split and skewered flat, a trick still recognisable in the modern mixed grill.