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Stewed Mutton Kidneys, Madeira Sauce
Carefully skin twelve very fresh, good-sized mutton kidneys. Cut each one in even quarters. Heat in a black frying pan one tablespoon melted lard, drop in the kidneys, toss them well for half minute; briskly cook for three minutes, gently tossing meanwhile, and drain on a sieve.
Heat a teaspoon melted butter in a very small saucepan, add six small, finely chopped shallots and cook for one minute without browning. Add the kidneys, with half gill sherry and one gill demi-glace. Season with half teaspoon salt and a saltspoon cayenne pepper; lightly mix with a wooden spoon and briskly cook for five minutes. Dress on a hot, deep dish, sprinkle a very little chopped parsley over and serve.
A straightforward sauté in the French hotel manner, with two things worth knowing before you start: the units are pre-metric, and kidneys tolerate almost no overcooking.
- The hinge: total cooking timeThree minutes in the pan plus five in the sauce is close to the limit. Kidney protein tightens and turns grainy and livery past that point, so pull them while still faintly pink inside and let the residual heat of the sauce finish them.
- Gills and saltspoonsA gill is half a cup, so "half gill sherry" is 1/4 cup and "one gill demi-glace" is 1/2 cup. A saltspoon is about 1/4 teaspoon, which with cayenne is assertive but not reckless across twelve kidneys.
- Madeira or sherryThe title promises Madeira sauce and the method calls for sherry. Both were standard in this style of brown sauce; the recipe does not explain the discrepancy. Use a dry Madeira if you want the dish the title names.
- Mutton kidneysMutton means an adult sheep, and those kidneys are larger and stronger tasting than what is now sold. Lamb kidneys are the practical substitute, and twelve of them will give somewhat less meat, so buy by weight — roughly 1 1/2 to 2 lb trimmed.
- Skinning means coring tooPeel off the membrane, then split and cut out the white fatty core and any tubes. Left in, it will not soften and gives the sauce a faint ammoniac edge.
- A black frying panCast iron or heavy carbon steel, well heated. One tablespoon of fat in a wide pan is deliberately little — the kidneys should sear rather than stew, and a crowded pan will release liquid and boil them grey.
- Demi-glaceAt the time this meant reduced brown veal stock, kept as a matter of course in a professional kitchen. Buy a good commercial demi-glace or reduce a strong veal or beef stock hard until it coats a spoon; a thin stock will leave the dish watery.
- Yield and serviceServes four to six as a course. Traditionally set on toast or with rice or plain boiled potatoes, and it must go out immediately — held warm, the kidneys firm up.
Sautéed kidneys with a brown wine sauce — rognons sautés au madère — was a fixture of the late nineteenth-century restaurant and club repertoire, appearing at breakfast, at luncheon, and as a savoury at the end of a formal dinner in the English fashion. Its presence in a book called The International Cook Book, compiled in the Delmonico's tradition of American hotel cookery, reflects how thoroughly French professional technique had colonised the fashionable American kitchen: the recipe assumes demi-glace on hand and measures in gills and saltspoons, the vocabulary of a working brigade rather than a home cook. Offal was cheap and abundant then, and mutton — meat from a full-grown sheep, now nearly unobtainable in American markets — was ordinary rather than exotic. The dish reads as a period marker on both counts.