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Veal Kidney Stewed in Wine
Cut a veal kidney into several pieces, remove the sinewy parts and cut it in slices of moderate thickness. Put in a quarter of a pound of butter in a fryingpan to melt; then put in the slices of kidney, season with pepper and salt and fry them over a brisk fire until the moisture has disappeared. Put two tablespoonfuls of chopped shallot and onions into a stewpan with a lump of butter and fry them without browning; add fifteen or eighteen mushrooms, a bunch of parsley and a clove of garlic in with the onions. Pour in over the onions, etc., one-half pint of white wine and the same quantity of gravy. Boil the liquor till it is reduced to half its original quantity, then strain it through a fine hair-sieve into another saucepan; stir in with it a little thick brown sauce and a half teacupful of melted glaze, stir it over the fire for three or four minutes, then throw in the slices of kidney and heat them without boiling. Take the garlic and bunch of parsley out of the liquor, place the kidney and sauce on a hot dish, garnish with croutons of fried bread or bits of toast, and serve. The slices of kidney may also be served in a fancy paste croustade.
A classic French kidney sauté dressed in hotel-kitchen French: the sauce is built separately and the kidney is only reheated in it. The instructions assume a brigade with stock, glaze and brown sauce already on the stove.
- The hinge: never let it boilOnce the seared kidney goes back into the sauce it must only be brought up to serving heat. Kidney seizes and turns grainy and rubbery within a minute of simmering, which is why the recipe says "heat them without boiling."
- Trimming and soakingVeal kidney comes as a multi-lobed mass with a hard core of fat and sinew at the centre; cut it into lobes and pare that out completely, as the recipe's "sinewy parts" instruction intends. A 20-30 minute soak in cold water or milk, then a thorough drying, keeps the ammoniac note down.
- "Fry until the moisture has disappeared"Kidney throws a great deal of liquid. Use a wide pan over high heat and work in batches; crowded slices poach in their own juice and grey out. Sear briefly, keep them pink inside, and set aside while the sauce is made.
- A quarter pound of butterFour ounces, a full US stick, for one kidney. Two tablespoons is enough in a modern nonstick or steel pan; the original quantity reflects the era's taste and cast iron.
- Gravy, brown sauce and glaze"Gravy" here means brown veal or beef stock, not thickened pan gravy. "Thick brown sauce" is espagnole or demi-glace, and "melted glaze" is glace de viande, stock reduced to a syrup. A half teacupful of glaze is on the order of 2 fl oz melted -- teacup measures varied -- which is still very strong; 1-2 tablespoons of good demi-glace does the same work today.
- Quantities to handHalf a pint each of white wine and stock is 1 cup each, reduced to 1 cup total. Fifteen to eighteen mushrooms means small button mushrooms, roughly 8 oz. The "bunch of parsley" is a tied bundle meant to be fished out, and the garlic clove goes in whole for the same reason.
- Hair sieveA fine-mesh strainer or chinois. Straining implies the shallots, mushrooms and aromatics served only to flavour the liquor, though the later instruction to lift the garlic and parsley out of the strained sauce suggests the recipe is not consistent on what was actually left in.
- Yield and serviceOne veal kidney serves two, three at a stretch as a first course. The fried bread croutons are not decoration; the sauce is concentrated and needs something to sit on. A pastry croustade is the dressier hotel presentation.
Oscar Tschirky ran the dining rooms of the Waldorf and later the Waldorf-Astoria, and the cookbook published under his name in 1896 is essentially a record of what a large American luxury hotel kitchen of the 1890s cooked, which is to say French food written in English. Kidneys sauteed in wine, rognons au vin, belonged squarely to that repertoire: cheap offal transformed by expensive stock work into a dish worth a hotel price. The recipe's dependence on demi-glace and glace de viande is the tell that it was written from within a brigade, where those preparations simmered all day and were dipped into by the spoonful rather than made to order. Veal kidney was ordinary restaurant fare in America into the mid-twentieth century and only fell out of general use later, as offal retreated from the home table.