No. 1616

Mutton Kidneys a la Burtel

Rognons de Mouton a la Burtel

Suppress both the skin and fatty parts from eight kidneys; separate each one into two and lay them in a pan with melted butter, and a pinch of shallot; toss quickly and when well seized, season with salt, pepper, and a dash of cayenne pepper; as fast as their humidity is reduced lift them up with a skimmer and lay in a small vessel. Pour a quarter of a pint of Madeira wine into the pan, let reduce to half, then add as much melted glaze (No. 402); boil the liquid, and thicken it at once with small bits of kneaded butter (No. 579); at the first boil stir in the kidneys, and at the same time two tablespoonfuls of cooked ham cut in small dice, and a pinch of chopped up tarragon. Remove the stew from the fire, pour it into a dish and surround with fried bread croutons glazed with a brush.

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For the Modern Kitchen

Charles Ranhofer writes for a brigade that has stock, glaze and kneaded butter standing ready; the work in a home kitchen is mostly in assembling those first. The dish itself takes about ten minutes once they are.

The hinge: do not cook them twiceThe kidneys are seared, removed, and only returned to the finished sauce at the first boil, then taken straight off the heat. Mutton kidney turns grainy and rubbery within a minute of a hard simmer, so the sauce must be complete before they go back in.
"Well seized"Ranhofer's saisir means a hard sear in hot butter over high heat, no crowding. Eight kidneys halved is too many for one pan on a domestic burner; work in two batches or the released liquid will stew them, which is exactly what "as fast as their humidity is reduced" warns against.
Trimming"Suppress the skin and fatty parts" means peeling off the thin membrane and cutting out the white core of fat and tube at the centre of each half. Lamb kidneys are the practical substitute for mutton and need no soaking; a soak in cold water or a little vinegar is sometimes recommended for stronger-smelling mutton kidneys.
A quarter of a pint of MadeiraHalf a cup if read as American measure, which is the likely intent in a book published in New York. Use a dry or medium-dry Madeira such as Sercial or Verdelho; a sweet Malmsey will make the sauce cloying once reduced by half.
Glaze, No. 402Ranhofer's glace de viande is brown veal or beef stock reduced to a syrup that sets solid when cold. Commercial demi-glace or a good reduced stock works; if you use a concentrated paste, dilute it and taste before salting, since the Madeira reduction concentrates everything further.
Kneaded butter, No. 579Beurre manié: butter and flour worked cold to a paste. Drop it in small pieces into the boiling liquid and whisk; a teaspoon or two of the paste is enough to bind half a cup of reduced wine and glaze.
The croutonsTriangles or hearts of bread fried in butter, then brushed with a little of the meat glaze for shine. Set them around the dish at the last moment or they soften.
YieldEight kidneys serve four as a course on their own, or six alongside other dishes. It is rich, and rice or plain toast carries it better than potatoes.

A Little History

This comes from The Epicurean (1894), Charles Ranhofer's vast record of his years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, where the mutton chapter runs to dozens of numbered preparations and each one cross-references the sauces and garnishes elsewhere in the book. Kidneys held a settled place on nineteenth-century menus as a breakfast, supper or chafing-dish item on both sides of the Atlantic, valued precisely because they cook in minutes; the Madeira-and-glaze treatment here was a common restaurant handling of organ meats in the period, with diced ham and tarragon doing the seasoning work. The name "à la Burtel" is not explained by Ranhofer and cannot be traced with any confidence — like many of his attributions it may honour a colleague, a patron or a predecessor in the kitchen, a habit of naming that filled French menus with surnames whose owners are now unrecoverable.