Home › The World's Kitchen › Mutton Kidneys, Turbigo
Mutton Kidneys, Turbigo
Carefully skin twelve very fresh mutton kidneys, then cut in one-third-inch-thick slices. Cut also six raw country sausages in half-inch pieces. Heat a tablespoon melted butter in a sautoire, add kidneys and sausages. Season with a light teaspoon salt and three satlspoons pepper, then briskly fry six minutes, frequently tossing meanwhile. Add four finely chopped shallots, lightly mix and brown tow minutes, then add twelve canned mushrooms cut in halves. Pour in a half gill white wine and let reduce to a third of the quantity; pour in one gill demi-glace, a gill tomato sauce, lightly mix and let briskly cook six minutes. Pour the kidneys into a deep dish, sprinkle a little finely chopped parsley over and serve.
A classic French garnish worked into a quick sauté pan dish. The whole thing hangs on not overcooking the kidneys, and on a demi-glace you either have or must substitute for.
- Kidneys first, everything else secondSliced mutton kidney is done in two to three minutes of hard searing and turns rubbery and grainy after that. Sear them, lift them out, build the sauce, and return them only for the last minute rather than letting them ride through the full fourteen minutes the original implies.
- Prep the kidneys properlyBeyond skinning, cut out the white core and any gristle. A 20-30 minute soak in cold salted water or milk, then a thorough pat dry, tempers the ammoniacal smell; wet kidneys will steam instead of brown.
- Raw sausage needs longer than the kidneysHalf-inch pieces of raw country sausage will not reliably reach 160F in six minutes of tossing, though they do carry on cooking in the sauce for a further eight. Brown them separately until cooked through, then add them with the mushrooms.
- SautoireA straight-sided sauté pan, wide and shallow. Use the widest pan you have: twelve kidneys' worth of slices crowded together will release liquid and boil rather than brown.
- Gill and saltspoonA gill is half a cup, so a half gill of wine is 1/4 cup and a gill of demi-glace or tomato sauce is 1/2 cup. A saltspoon is about 1/4 teaspoon, making three of them a generous 3/4 teaspoon of pepper -- assertive, and worth starting lower.
- Demi-glaceThe book assumes a professional kitchen with brown sauce standing by. Reduced homemade veal or beef stock, or a good commercial demi-glace concentrate, works; a thin stock will not give the body the dish depends on.
- MushroomsCanned button mushrooms were the convenience item of 1906. Small fresh mushrooms, halved and browned in butter first so they lose their water, are better in every respect.
- YieldTwelve kidneys and six sausages should serve about six as a main course. Serve immediately with rice, potatoes or toast points -- the sauce is meant to be spooned over.
- Typos in the original"satlspoons" is saltspoons and "tow minutes" is two minutes; the text is reproduced as printed.
Turbigo is usually counted as one of a small family of French garnishes said to be named for battles of the 1859 Franco-Piedmontese campaign in Lombardy, alongside Magenta and Solferino; the village of Turbigo on the Ticino saw fighting that June, though the link between the battle and the dish is traditional rather than documented, and the naming of dishes after such victories was a habit of Second Empire kitchens. As codified in the classic repertoire, à la Turbigo means small sausages or chipolatas and mushrooms in a tomato-tinted brown sauce, and it attached itself most firmly to kidneys -- rognons Turbigo remained a standard grill-room and hotel dish well into the twentieth century. Its appearance here, in a book compiled by a Delmonico's steward for American households, shows how much of the "international" repertoire of 1906 was simply the French professional canon transcribed: the instructions assume a cook with demi-glace and tomato sauce already made, which is why the recipe can be so brisk about everything else.