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Deviled Lambs' Kidneys
Skin and pare a dozen kidneys, without separating the parts, and run the skewers through as for broiled lambs' kidneys with Colbert sauce. Broil them a little for one minute on either side, then stir together in a dish one teaspoonful of mustard with two tablespoonfuls of Parisian sauce, a little cayenne pepper, one teaspoonful of salt and a little mignonette pepper. Roll the kidneys well in this and then in breadcrumbs, and finish by broiling them once more for three or four minutes. Pour over a gill of maitre d'hotel butter, and serve.
Fried Lambs' Kidneys with Bread Croutons Skin and trim the fat off the kidneys, cut each one into halves lengthwise, place them in a fryingpan with one or two finely-chopped shallots and two ounces of butter, sprinkle with salt and pepper and fry them. When the shallots are nicely browned and the kidneys are cooked remove them from the fire and baste with a few tablespoonfuls of melted glaze. Fry in hot fat half a dozen croutons of bread, and when brown and crisp brush them over with a paste-brush dipped in melted glaze; place the kidneys on a hot dish, sprinkle with chopped parsley, squeeze over them the juice of a lemon, garnish with croutons of bread, and serve.
Two kidney preparations run together on one page: the deviled version, skewered and breadcrumbed under the broiler, and a quick sauté finished with glaze and croutons. Both live or die on timing.
- Don't overcook themLamb kidneys turn grainy and rubbery within a minute of going past medium. The deviled version's total broiling time of five to six minutes is about right for kidneys that stay faintly pink at the center; the sautéed halves need only two to three minutes a side in the butter.
- SkeweringThe instruction to work "without separating the parts" appears to mean splitting each kidney nearly through lengthwise, opening it flat like a butterfly, and running a skewer through to hold it open so it cannot curl under the heat.
- TrimmingPeel off the papery membrane and cut out the white core of fat and gristle at the hinge. A rinse and a fifteen-minute soak in cold water or milk mutes the ammoniac edge if that bothers you; with very fresh kidneys it may not be needed.
- Parisian sauceMost likely one of the period's bottled brown table sauces, in the family of Worcestershire and the old mushroom ketchups, though no formula survives under that name. Any thick brown table sauce, or a spoonful of demi-glace with a dash of Worcestershire, gives the same effect: salt, tang and body to make the mustard cling.
- Mignonette pepperCoarsely cracked peppercorns, traditionally white, ground so the pieces stay visible rather than dusty. Crack them under a pan rather than using a fine grind.
- GlazeMeat glaze is veal or beef stock reduced to a syrup that sets solid when cold. Melted demi-glace, or a good stock reduced hard on its own, does the job for both basting the kidneys and brushing the croutons.
- A gill of butterA gill is half a cup, which is a great deal of maitre d'hotel butter for twelve kidneys. Two or three tablespoons of butter creamed with chopped parsley, lemon juice, salt and pepper, melted over the hot kidneys, is closer to modern taste.
- Broiler heatPreheat the broiler as high as it goes and set the rack close to the element. The breadcrumb coating on the deviled kidneys wants to color fast, before the interior has time to go past pink.
- YieldA dozen kidneys would serve roughly four as a main course, more at breakfast. The second recipe names no number of kidneys; its half-dozen croutons suggest a smaller dish.
Kidneys were breakfast and supper food in the Anglo-American hotel dining room, and "deviling" — coating something in mustard, cayenne and crumbs and browning it hard — was a common treatment for rich, strong-flavored meats and for leftovers, the word having been used in this culinary sense in Britain since at least the late eighteenth century. Oscar Tschirky, who was maître d'hôtel at the Waldorf from the hotel's opening in 1893, put his name to the 1896 Cook Book, which draws heavily on the French professional repertoire of his kitchen, and that explains why an English devil sits a line away from shallots, meat glaze and croutons. The bottled "Parisian sauce" in the deviling mixture is a period marker of its own: hotel kitchens of the 1890s used proprietary brown sauces much as a modern line cook reaches for Worcestershire, and many of those brands are now gone with no recorded formula.