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Kidneys with Madeira
Use either sheep or pigs' kidneys. Cut them longways, so as to be able to take out the threads from the inside of them. Put some butter on to fry over a brisk fire and when it is browned, but not burnt, put in the kidneys for three or four minutes. Take them out and keep them hot for a minute while you add to the butter they were cooked in a soupspoonful of Madeira wine, a good dust of chopped parsley, a little cayenne pepper and salt. Mix it well, and if too thick add a little gravy. Pour the sauce over the kidneys and finish with a powdering of chopped parsley. Fried potatoes are eaten with this dish.
A fast sauté with a pan sauce; the whole thing takes less than ten minutes once the kidneys are trimmed. Everything depends on not overcooking them.
- The hinge: three or four minutes and no moreKidneys turn grainy and rubbery the moment they pass medium. They should still be faintly pink and springy at the centre when they come out of the pan, and they will carry on cooking as they rest under a cover.
- Buying and trimmingWhat is sold as lamb kidney is generally what you will find today, and it is milder than a mature sheep's kidney; pork kidneys are stronger and more likely to need soaking. Split them lengthways as directed and cut out the white core and any tubes — the "threads" — with the tip of a small knife.
- Soaking and dryingMany cooks soak kidneys 20-30 minutes in cold water or milk to draw out the sharp smell, then pat them thoroughly dry. Wet kidneys will steam rather than brown, and this recipe wants colour.
- A brisk fireRead this as a heavy pan over high heat, butter foaming and just turning nut-brown. Add a spoonful of oil with the butter if your pan runs hot, since milk solids scorch quickly and burnt butter will ruin the sauce.
- A soupspoonfulAbout a tablespoon. That is a very small amount of Madeira for a pan sauce; two to three tablespoons is more usual now, reduced briefly so the alcohol cooks off.
- "A little gravy"In a period kitchen this meant a ladle of the day's meat stock. Use beef or veal stock, or the roasting juices from something else; a splash is enough to loosen the sauce.
- MadeiraUse a dry to medium Madeira — Sercial or Verdelho — rather than a sweet Malmsey, which will make the sauce cloying against the iron flavour of the kidneys. Do not substitute cooking wine labelled Madeira with added salt.
- Quantity and servingFigure two lamb kidneys per person as a first course, three or four as a main. The fried potatoes matter: they soak up a sauce that is otherwise scant.
Kidneys with a fortified-wine pan sauce are generally placed on the everyday side of Franco-Belgian cooking, where offal was cheap, quick and treated with the same butter-and-reduction technique as more expensive cuts. Madeira earned its place in these sauces because it survives long sea voyages and open bottles without turning ‐ the wine is deliberately heated and oxidised in production ‐ which made it a reliable pantry staple in northern Europe long before refrigeration. This book was compiled during the First World War, when Belgium was occupied and much of its population dependent on relief; recipes are often said to have been gathered abroad partly to raise money and sympathy for Belgian refugees, and partly to record a domestic cuisine then under real threat. A dish built on organ meat, a spoonful of wine and a handful of parsley reflects that thrift honestly, as does the assumption that a cook has a pot of gravy standing by.