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Veal Kidney Omelet
Remove the fat and tubes from a veal and chop it fine. Place in a frying pan with one tablespoonful of butter, onehalf of a teaspoonful of salt and a dash of pepper and shake over a hot fire until the meat is a golden brown, then draw off to one side where it will keep hot. Beat four eggs without separating, add one tablespoonful of warm water. Heat one teaspoonful of butter in a clean frying pan. When very hot pour in the eggs and shake and stir over a hot fire until the mixture begins to set. Draw back a little that the omelet may set without burning, turn the cooked kidney over the center, fold up and serve on a hot platter.
A French rolled omelet with a quick sauté of veal kidney folded inside. The text drops the word "kidney" in the first line — read it as "a veal kidney." Everything hinges on speed: both the kidney and the eggs are ruined by an extra minute.
- Buying the kidneyOne veal kidney weighs roughly 8-10 oz once the surrounding suet is stripped away, which is ample for a four-egg omelet. It may have to be ordered ahead; lamb kidneys, three or four of them, are the usual substitute, though they are stronger in flavour.
- "Remove the fat and tubes"Veal kidney is multi-lobed. Pull off the hard white suet, split the kidney and cut out the pale gristly core and the tubes radiating from it, then separate the lobes and chop. Any core left in stays rubbery no matter how long it cooks.
- Soaking, which the book omitsPeriod cookery books often direct that kidney be soaked in cold salted water or milk for 20-30 minutes and patted dry, to mute the ammoniac edge. Modern veal kidney from a good butcher is mild enough that this is optional, but drying the meat thoroughly before it hits the butter is not — wet kidney steams instead of browning.
- The hinge: two minutes, not moreChopped kidney is done the moment the outside is golden and the inside still faintly pink. Held over the heat past that it seizes, turns grey and goes tough, and releases a strong smell. Brown it fast in a hot pan, then move it off the burner entirely rather than leaving it over even a low flame while you beat the eggs.
- "A hot fire"On a gas or electric hob this means medium-high to high for the kidney, and high for the eggs. The classic rolled omelet is a matter of 45 to 60 seconds; a pan that is merely warm gives you scrambled egg in a disc.
- PansTwo pans, as written. A 9- or 10-inch skillet — well-seasoned carbon steel or nonstick — suits four eggs. A much larger pan spreads the egg too thin to fold.
- The tablespoon of warm waterWater rather than milk is one common practice: it turns to steam and lightens the omelet without the sogginess milk can bring. Beat the eggs only until the whites and yolks are combined, not frothy.
- Butter quantitiesA teaspoon of butter for a four-egg omelet is sparing even in a well-seasoned pan; a tablespoon is safer, and it should be foaming but not browned when the eggs go in.
- YieldServes two as a breakfast dish, or one as the substantial breakfast the book has in mind. Have the platter warm and eat it immediately — a rolled omelet keeps for no one.
Kidney at breakfast belongs to the long Anglo-American tradition of the hot morning sideboard, where devilled kidneys, kidneys on toast and kidney omelets sat alongside chops and fish. American household books at the turn of the twentieth century borrowed the habit along with the French omelette technique — the warm water, the shaking pan, the fold — which passed into domestic manuals like this one. Veal kidney in particular was prized above lamb or beef for its mildness and fine texture, and offal in general was the everyday economy of a period when whole animals came into the butcher's shop and nothing was wasted.