No. 1524

Veal Kidneys a l'Anderson

Rognons de Veau a l'Anderson

For six persons have three small or two large very fresh kidneys; suppress the fat and fibrous parts, then cut them up into small slices. Fry in butter in a sautoir one ounce of chopped onion, add the pieces of kidney, and toss them over a quick fire while seasoning; as soon as the meats are cooked, pour all into a sauce pan; remove them with a skimmer on a dish leaving the liquid in the pan, and into it pour one gill of veal blond (No. 423), and one gill of red wine; stir well with the kidney juice, and thicken with a small piece of kneaded butter (No. 579), boil and pass through a tammy; add the kidneys, and finish seasoning with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and chopped parsley. Cut some potatoes into three-sixteenths of an inch thick slices, then with a round vegetable cutter an inch and a quarter in diameter, remove some pieces; fry these of a fine golden color in butter, drain off the latter and add a little meat glaze (No. 402), a little salt, parsley, and lemon juice; dress these potatoes in a circle, filling the middle with the kidneys and their gravy.

← No. 1523 Small Kernels or Nuts with Macedoine Veal No. 1525 Veal Kidneys a la Roederer →

For the Modern Kitchen

Charles Ranhofer writes for a professional brigade with a stocked larder, so the recipe leans on cross-references and assumes the cook knows how kidneys behave. The hinge is heat: veal kidney turns grainy and weeps the moment it goes past pink.

Cook the kidney briefly, then keep it out of the boilSlices of veal kidney need only a minute or two of hard tossing in a hot pan. Ranhofer removes them with a skimmer before the sauce is built and boiled precisely so they do not tighten; add them back only to warm through off the boil.
A gillHalf a cup, 4 fluid ounces. The sauce here is one gill stock and one gill red wine, so about a cup of liquid before reduction, for six people.
Veal blond (No. 423)A light veal stock, the bones and trimmings started without browning so the liquid stays pale. Any unsalted light veal or chicken stock stands in; avoid a dark, heavily reduced brown stock, which will overwhelm the kidney juices.
Kneaded butter (No. 579)Beurre manié is butter and flour worked cold to a paste, in the same weights, whisked into the simmering liquid in small pieces. It is a finishing thickener, not a roux; a piece the size of a hazelnut is enough for a cup of sauce.
Sautoir and tammyA sautoir is a straight-sided sauté pan. To pass through a tammy is to push the sauce through a cloth or fine sieve; a chinois pressed with a ladle does the same work.
Meat glaze (No. 402)Glace de viande, stock reduced to a syrup that sets firm when cold. A teaspoon tossed with the hot potatoes gives them their gloss and savour. Commercial demi-glace concentrate or a very reduced stock will serve.
TrimmingSuppressing the fat and fibrous parts means cutting away the hard white core entirely, not just the surrounding suet. Freshness matters more than any soaking; a kidney with ammoniac smell should not be used.
The potato garnishSlices a scant 5 mm thick, then stamped into rounds of just over 3 cm (1 1/4 in). Fry them in butter until golden and cooked through before the glaze, salt, parsley and lemon go on, and dress them while still crisp.
YieldStated as six persons, which by 1894 service means a small course among many. As a modern main it will feed three or four.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and it carries the house habit of naming dishes for the patrons and public figures who ate them a Roederer, and here an Anderson whose identity the book does not trouble to explain. Such names were part of the trade: a regular who liked his kidneys done a particular way could find that version fixed in the kitchen's repertoire and then in print. The dish itself is thoroughly French sautd kidney deglazed with red wine and light veal stock, bound with beurre maniand ringed with glazed potato rounds and reflects the period's confidence that offal belonged on a fashionable menu rather than at the cheap end of it. Veal kidney, milder and finer-grained than beef, was the luxury version, and Ranhofer's insistence on "very fresh" kidneys is the one piece of shopping advice in the entry.