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Broiled Mutton Kidneys with Bacon
Split, without separating, twelve fine, fresh, chocolate-coloured mutton kidneys. Skin them nicely. Have on a soup plate one tablespoon good oil, half teaspoon salt and two saltspoons white pepper; mix well, then drop in the kidneys and roll them in well. Arrange them on a double broiler well set and broil for three minutes on each side. Remove, dress them on six toasts, with a slice of bacon each on two kidneys. Divide a tablespoon melted butter on top of the kidneys and serve.
A quick grill of lamb's kidneys on toast, meant for breakfast or a savoury course. Everything depends on buying them fresh and cooking them briefly.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, so two saltspoons of white pepper is half a teaspoon. With one tablespoon of oil and half a teaspoon of salt, that is the whole marinade for twelve kidneys.
- "Chocolate-coloured"This is a freshness test, not a variety. Fresh lamb or mutton kidneys are deep glossy red-brown; dull grey-brown, dry surfaces or any ammoniac smell means they are past use. Buy them the day you cook them.
- Butterflying and skinningSplit lengthways through the convex side, stopping short of cutting through, so the kidney opens flat like a book. Peel off the thin outer membrane, then snip out the pale fatty core at the hinge with scissors; it stays tough however briefly it cooks.
- Keeping them flatKidneys curl violently under heat. Run a metal or soaked wooden skewer crossways through each opened kidney, or press them under a weighted pan, or they will cup and steam rather than brown.
- The "double broiler"Not a double boiler. This is a hinged wire grill basket that clamps food between two grids so it can be turned in one motion, used over coals or under a gas salamander. A stovetop grill pan or a cast-iron skillet over high heat does the same work; a domestic overhead broiler should be preheated fully and the rack set close to the element.
- Three minutes a sideHonour this. Kidneys pass from tender and faintly pink at the centre to grainy and rubbery within a minute or so. Six minutes total over real heat suits kidneys of average size; take them off while they still yield to a finger.
- The bacon and toastCook the bacon separately in a pan or under the broiler until crisp; it will not finish in three minutes alongside the kidneys. Six slices of toast, two kidneys and one slice of bacon each, so the recipe serves six as a first or breakfast course.
- The finishing butterA tablespoon of melted butter divided over twelve kidneys is a deliberate gloss rather than a sauce. Spoon it on at the table so it carries the escaping juices with it; the kidneys will release liquid the moment they rest.
Kidneys with bacon on toast is a fixture of the British breakfast and savoury table, and grilled offal suited the hotel and restaurant kitchens of the period: cheap, fast to order, and well matched to the hinged broiler. Mutton here means adult sheep, whose kidneys are larger and stronger-flavoured than the lamb kidneys sold today; the book's insistence on colour reflects a period when offal was bought from a butcher's block without refrigeration and freshness had to be judged by eye and nose.