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Kidney Curry
Skin twelve fresh mutton kidneys, cut them in two lengthwise, place on a plate, season with a teaspoon salt, half teaspoon pepper and keep till required. Cut in julienne strips a small carrot, seeded green pepper, half a small peeled eggplant, four shallots and two branches celery, place in a saucepan with two tablespoons melted butter and fry for ten minutes, stiring once in a while. Add a sound, peeled, cored apple cut in julienne strips and two finely chopped, seeded red tomatoes, season with a half teaspoon salt, saltspoon each cayenne and grated nutmeg, a teaspoon curry powder, stir well, then brown for ten minutes, lightly stirring occasionally. Dredge in a tablespoon flour, stir well, moisten with two gills broth, mix well and let slowly cook for twenty-five minutes. Boil six thin slices ham for a minute on each side and arrange on a hot dish. Place kidneys in a frying pan with a tablespoon melted butter, fry them for two minutes on each side and dress them over slices of ham. Pour contents of pan over all, set in oven for five minutes, dress a boiled rice around curry and serve.
A fast Anglo-Indian sauté rather than a long-simmered curry: the vegetable base does all the cooking, and the kidneys are barely touched by heat. Read the timings literally.
- Don't overcook the kidneysTwo minutes a side in butter plus five minutes in the oven is the whole cooking time, and that is correct. Kidney turns grainy and rubbery the moment it goes past faintly pink at the centre, and no amount of extra sauce time recovers it.
- Kidneys to buyMutton kidneys mean lamb kidneys today; twelve gives roughly 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 lb. After halving lengthwise, snip out the white core and any membrane, which the recipe assumes you know to do.
- Gills and saltspoonsTwo gills is 1 cup of broth. A saltspoon is about 1/4 teaspoon, so cayenne and nutmeg are each a scant quarter teaspoon.
- ShallotsIn some American cookbooks of this period "shallots" can mean green onions or scallions. Either reading works; four scallions, white and pale green, cut in julienne, is one way to take it.
- Curry powderOne teaspoon in a dish for six is mild by modern expectation, and older commercial blends were heavy on turmeric and coriander. Taste the sauce before the kidneys go in and add more if it reads flat, but do it early so the raw spice cooks out.
- OvenNo temperature is given; a moderate oven, 350F, is right for a five-minute pass whose only job is to heat the assembled dish through.
- The hamBoiling thin slices for a minute a side would have served to freshen salty, dry-cured ham. With modern mild ham, a brief turn in the frying pan after the kidneys is more useful than water.
- Yield and riceSix slices of ham and twelve kidneys, cut in two for twenty-four halves, point to six servings. Allow about 1 1/2 cups raw long-grain rice, boiled and drained, to ring the platter.
The International Cook Book came out of the professional dining rooms of turn-of-the-century New York, and its curries are Anglo-Indian rather than Indian: a European sauté base of carrot, celery, apple and tomato, thickened with a flour dredge and flavoured with a spoonful of ready-made curry powder from a tin. That formula reached American hotel kitchens by way of British cookery, where curry had been a standing item in printed cookbooks since the mid-eighteenth century, and where apple in the sauce became a common habit. Kidney was an obvious partner because it was cheap, quick-cooking and already at home under strong seasoning, as in devilled kidneys at breakfast. Serving it heaped on ham with a border of boiled rice is pure restaurant plating of the period.