No. 1525

Veal Kidneys a la Roederer

Rognons de Veau a la Roederer

Mince three small kidneys after suppressing the fat and fibrous parts; fry them in butter in a sautoir on a hot fire, season and as soon as the meats are seized, pour into a sautoir; remove the kidneys with a skimmer, and lay them on a dish, leaving their liquid in the pan; into this add a little espagnole sauce (No. 414), some champagne, cooked and turned mushrooms (No. 118), meat glaze (No. 402), chopped and blanched parsley, and lemon juice; pour the sauce over the kidneys, and garnish around with small Milanaise macaroni croquettes made by cooking one pound of macaroni in salted water for fifteen minutes, then drain and cut into quarter inch lengths; put them back into the saucepan with grated parmesan and Swiss cheese, half of each, a little salt, pepper, nutmeg, bechamel (No. 409), and a large piece of butter; mix well, then let get cold. With this preparation make croquettes, either cylinder-shaped or any other form; dip in eggs, bread-crumb, and fry to a golden brown.

← No. 1524 Veal Kidneys a l'Anderson Veal No. 1526 Veal Kidneys with Marrow →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with espagnole, glaze and bechamel already standing on the stove; the dish itself is a five-minute sauté with a garnish that takes longer than the meat. Read the whole thing before you start, because the croquette mixture must be made and chilled first.

The hinge: kidney is seared, not stewedSliced veal kidney needs about a minute or two over high heat, until just browned and still pink within. Once it is out of the pan it should not go back in; build the sauce separately and pour it over, or the kidneys turn grainy and rubbery and begin to smell of ammonia.
SautoirA straight-sided shallow sauté pan, not a covered casserole. Any wide heavy skillet works, but use one large enough that three kidneys' worth of slices sit in a single layer — crowded kidney weeps and boils.
"As soon as the meats are seized"A literal rendering of saisir: seared on the outside. The following clause, "pour into a sautoir," is garbled in the original; the sense is to tip the contents out so the kidneys can be lifted from the liquid, then keep the liquid for the sauce.
TrimmingSuppressing the fat and fibrous parts means cutting out the white core and the hard tubes at the centre, which will not soften. Three small veal kidneys are roughly 1 to 1¼ lb trimmed.
Espagnole and meat glazeBoth are cross-references to earlier numbered sauce preparations in the book. A good commercial or homemade demi-glace stands in for the espagnole; the glaze is stock reduced to a syrup and is there for gloss and depth — a tablespoon is plenty. Ranhofer adds the lemon juice with the rest of the sauce; adding it off the heat at the end keeps it fresher.
ChampagneUnmeasured, as often in this book. About ¼ cup of dry sparkling or still white wine, reduced by half in the pan before the sauce goes in, gives the acidity intended.
Turned mushroomsNo. 118 is the book's cross-reference for them: mushroom caps pared into faceted domes with a small knife and cooked in butter, water and lemon. Whole small caps or halved cremini, cooked until the water has gone, do the same work.
The croquettesOne pound of macaroni is a great deal — far more garnish than the three kidneys need. Cook, dress with the cheeses and bechamel, spread on a tray and chill until firm before shaping; a warm mixture will not hold. Fry at 350–375F until golden, in batches.
YieldThe kidneys serve four as a main course, six as a course in a longer meal. Scale the macaroni to a quarter pound unless you want leftovers to fry the next day.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894) records the kitchen of Delmonico's in New York, and a great many of its dishes carry the name of a customer, a supplier or a house of wine. Roederer is the Reims champagne house, and the champagne in the sauce here is the obvious reason for the name, though no source ties the dish to a particular person. Veal kidney was ordinary restaurant cooking of the period and cheap as offal generally was: quick over a hot fire, and dependent on good butter and a sauce base already at hand. What dates the dish now is not the offal but the assumption behind it, that a cook could reach for espagnole, meat glaze, bechamel and turned mushrooms without making any of them first. The Milanaise croquettes show how macaroni was often treated in American grand cooking of the time: boiled soft, bound with cheese and white sauce, chilled, cut and fried as a garnish, closer to a fritter than to a plate of pasta.