Home › The Waldorf Kitchen › Mutton Kidneys in Terrine
Mutton Kidneys in Terrine
Put some mutton kidneys into a fryingpan with a little butter and fry them slightly; they should not be cut open for this. Place them in an earthenware terrine with a few slices of onions also browned in butter, and add a slice of lean bacon, two potatoes and two carrots also cut in slices; pour over one pint of stock or water, put on the lid, set the terrine in the oven, and cook gently for about three hours. When done take them out, put the terrine on a dish covered with a folded napkin, and serve.
A plain oven braise with no quantities given, of the kind Oscar's kitchen expected a cook to scale by eye. The main adjustment is the meat itself: mutton kidneys are large and strong, and what you will buy today is almost certainly lamb.
- TerrineHere the word means the vessel, not the potted forcemeat: a deep lidded earthenware pot that goes into the oven and comes to the table in it. Any covered casserole or small Dutch oven does the same work, though earthenware holds the gentle heat best.
- "Cook gently" in the ovenNo temperature is given. A low moderate oven, in the region of 300-325F, is a reasonable modern equivalent, with the liquid barely trembling rather than boiling.
- Mutton versus lamb kidneysMutton kidneys are noticeably larger and considerably stronger in flavour than lamb's, which makes the three hours less surprising. Lamb kidneys are what butchers sell now, and a full three hours will leave them dry and mealy; check at ninety minutes and judge by the vegetables.
- Preparing the kidneysStrip the papery membrane and any hard suet before frying. Oscar's instruction not to cut them open is deliberate: left whole, they hold their juices through the long braise.
- The fry is a colouring, not a cooking"Fry them slightly" means a minute or two per side in hot butter for colour only. A kidney cooked through in the pan has nothing left to give in the oven.
- Slice of lean baconA slab of unsmoked or lightly smoked bacon, cut thick, standing in for the seasoning fat rather than for crispness. Pancetta or a piece of unsmoked streaky works; heavily smoked supermarket rashers will dominate the pot.
- QuantitiesNone are given. For a pint of liquid, something like six to eight lamb kidneys with the two potatoes and two carrots specified and a few slices of onion will fill a medium lidded pot and feed three or four. No seasoning is mentioned in the original; salt and pepper to taste.
- The folded napkinA service convention of the period: the hot earthenware sits on a napkin folded on the platter so it neither slides nor scorches the tablecloth. Purely presentational, and safe to skip.
Kidneys were everyday eating in the Anglo-American dining rooms of the Waldorf, appearing devilled at breakfast, grilled with chops, and, as here, braised slowly with root vegetables. Mutton was ordinary meat in the nineteenth century and fell out of American favour across the twentieth, which is why this recipe now reads as more exotic than it did in 1896, when The Cook Book by "Oscar" of the Waldorf appeared. Its shape is standard hotel practice: a cheap organ meat, a long low oven, and a vessel that doubles as a serving dish so nothing needs plating out at the last minute.