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Lamb Kidneys, Mountain Style
9 LAMB KIDNEYS 3 TABLESPOONS BUTTER 3 SCALLIONS, CHOPPED I GARLIC CLOVE I CARROT, SLICED 2 TABLESPOONS FLOUR I CUP MEAT BROTH 1/2 CUP CLARET I CELERY STICK, MINCED THYME PARSLEY SALT AND PEPPER Skin and split kidneys lengthwise. Brown scallions, garlic, and carrot slices in butter, stir in flour, pour on broth and wine, season with everything else, and when boiling hot put in kidneys and cook tender. Serve with buttered campfire toast for dunking, or with well-buttered:
A quick braise built in one pan, meant for a campfire but equally at home on a stove. The whole dish turns on not overcooking the kidneys.
- Cook them brieflySplit lamb kidneys need only 5 to 8 minutes in the simmering sauce, until just firm and rosy at the centre. "Cook tender" here does not mean long stewing; past about ten minutes they tighten and turn grainy.
- Trim as well as skinAfter peeling the membrane and halving lengthwise, cut out the pale gristly core at the hinge of each half; it stays tough and is often blamed for a harsh edge.
- SoakingSplit kidneys are traditionally soaked 20 to 30 minutes in cold salted water or milk, then patted dry, to mute the ammoniac edge. Dry them thoroughly or they will steam rather than take on the sauce.
- ClaretIn American cookbooks of the period "claret" usually meant red Bordeaux, and was often applied loosely to any dry red of that style. Any dry red will do; half a cup is 4 fl oz.
- Meat brothBeef or lamb stock, unsalted or low-salt, since the sauce reduces. Season at the end rather than the beginning if using a commercial broth.
- ThickeningThree tablespoons butter with two of flour makes a light roux; cook it a minute with the vegetables before the liquid goes in so the sauce does not taste pasty. It will be a thin gravy, which is what the toast is for.
- HerbsRoughly a teaspoon of fresh thyme leaves, or half that dried, and a small handful of chopped parsley stirred in at the end.
- YieldNine kidneys serve three or four as a main course with the toast, or more as part of a larger camp breakfast.
Kidneys were standard breakfast and camp food well into the twentieth century, when whole-carcass butchery meant offal arrived with the meat rather than being sought out. They cook in minutes, keep poorly, and so were eaten first — a logic that suited outfitters and hunting camps as much as it did the English breakfast sideboard. The "mountain style" label appears to be doing what such names often do in American outdoor cookbooks: signalling a robust wine-and-vegetable braise rather than any documented regional tradition. The instruction to serve with campfire toast "for dunking" is the practical heart of it, since a thin pan gravy is easier to manage over a fire than a properly reduced sauce.