Devilled Kidneys

An Offally Good Dish

A bad call by the brewery, a gentle dig at American recipes and an elegant cocktail.

In my last blog I referred to that naval breakfast treat 'Sh*t on a Raft'. It was probably no coincidence then that a couple of days later I had in my shopping trolley four lovely plump lambs kidneys, actually three and a slightly slashed one, presumably the product of the butchers apprentice. I say probably no coincidence because I am quite susceptible to suggestion, an advertisers dream, and not just targeted advertising. I have been known while watching those exceptionally long episodes of Morse to get through even more whisky than Endeavor did.

Never having made 'Sh*t on a Raft' I did a little digging in search of an original recipe. Unfortunately the only one I could find was one put forward by an ex-submariner which simply involved boiling small pieces of kidney until tender before adding Bisto or similar gravy mix. The dish I remember was small pieces of kidney in a rich translucent beef sauce, so this may or may not be the version I have in my head, or it may be just a submariners version. In fairness they did have limited facilities and supplies on submarines, especially the old diesel ones as I once found out to my embarrassment during an impromptu mid-ocean secondment.

Perhaps I should have sacrificed my slashed kidney to test the Bisto enhanced recipe (does Bisto make a translucent gravy or a cloudy one?), but I decided to put all four to the Victorian rather than the naval and go for Devilled Kidneys...

Devilling food as a culinary practice apparently began back in the 18^th century and refers to preparing and cooking food with hot spices and condiments such as cayenne or mustard. The term was presumably adopted because of the connection between the devil and his or more likely her over-heated residence. Originally associated with kidneys & other meats, over the years it has been applied to all manner of things from eggs to fish and even biscuits. The French have a sauce (gravy) a la Diable dating back to the 1890's to be served with kidneys, steaks, etc. Intriguingly this sauce is thickened with arrowroot (translucent?). Could this be source of the sauce of our naval kidneys, although I can't believe naval cooks of the 70's would have to hand a glug or two of claret.

Given over two hundred years of devilling development it is no surprise that there are many and varied versions of Devilled Kidneys to choose from. Some include mushroom, onions, tomato ketchup, mushroom ketchup and/or cream of one sort or another. In fact the American versions all seem to favour a cream (half and half, light, heavy, heavy whipping, etc.!) - at least they don't start with the ubiquitous 'first open a can of condensed cream of mushroom soup'. Don't get me wrong, I have no objection to cream or for that matter condensed mushroom soup and would use it if I had some to hand (the cream, not the condensed soup). However this day none was at hand so it was my cream free version that I dug out.

This version of Devilled Kidney is based very much on Fergus Henderson's recipe from his cookbook 'The Whole Beast: Nose To Tail Eating' but I finish off with a blob of beurre manié made from a spoonful of the seasoned flour to thicken the sauce.

First step is to prepare the lambs kidneys. If you are lucky enough to have kidneys still rapped in their suet just pull it away (pop in the fridge to be used later – don't feed it to the birds!). Next peel off the thin membrane then cut each kidney in half length ways through the core so that you keep the classic kidney shape. With a pair of scissors snip out the core from each half. If you just pull slightly on the core while holding the meat back with the open tip of the scissors it will be obvious where to snip.

Mix the seasoned flour and make the spicy beurre manié. Mix together in a bowl about three tablespoons of plain flour, a teaspoon of cayenne pepper, a teaspoon of English mustard powder, a pinch of salt, and a quick grind of pepper. The actual quantities are not critical as most of it is used just to dust the kidneys so mix in more cayenne and mustard if you fancy it devilishly spicy. For the beurre manié put a desert spoon size knob of soft butter in a small bowl with a desert spoon of the spicy flour from the other bowl. Beurre manié is French for "kneaded butter" so get your fingers in and squeeze the butter and flour together to form a thick paste (I do have a little experience of this technique as demonstrated by my infamous non-crumbly crumble).

Time to make your toast or fried bread, which ever you prefer as the kidneys and sauce will literally only take minutes to cook. Depending on the weather I like to drizzle a couple of slices of rough old bread (rustic) with a little olive oil and slap it onto a hot ridged griddle pan. I love using this pan but despite the cooker hood running at full blast and the extractor fan extracting for all it's worth I have to open all the windows to stop the room filling with a thick smoky fog every time I use it, hence the weather dependency. Am I doing something wrong?

While the bread is sitting somewhere keeping warm get a frying pan very hot and toss in a knob of butter. As the butter is melting roll the kidney halves in the bowl of spicy flour and shake off the excess. You can do this in a sieve or just hold the kidney up and give it a little tap like a midwife slapping a baby’s bottom. Give each half about two minutes each side in the hot pan then add a good slosh of Worcestershire sauce and about a cup or so of chicken stock. Give the pan a little shimmy then a minute or so 'to let all the ingredients get to know each other'. Remove the kidney halves and pop onto the bread.

Pinch a couple of thumbnail size nibs from the beurre manié and whisk into the reducing sauce (those little flat whisks are great for this). Keep adding more nibs until you get a glossy sauce of your desired thickness. Pour over the kidneys and toast and tuck in. Any leftover beurre manié will keep in the fridge for ages so you can use it to thicken all sorts of sauce but don't forget this one has cayenne pepper and mustard powder in it!

Drink anyone?

The latest copy of Grape to Glass to drop through my door focused on food and wine matching. This is not something I am really strong on, tending to go for a good bold red whenever possible. That said I do try to match the food with a wine from the same country and sometimes even the same region. In this case though it seemed reasonable to give the wine a miss and have a bottle of beer and it just so happens I had a bottle of Spitfire, a premium Kentish ale in the sideboard cupboard. I don't keep beer in the fridge, I don't like it (or Guinness) too cold, half an hour in the fridge before you open it is enough.

Rant!!!!

Extra cold Guinness, what is that all about! If I wanted something so cold you can't taste it I would drink that Australian larger which seems so inexplicably popular!

As you may have guessed by my little outburst I have an issue. The brewery in their wisdom have replaced a perfectly good Guinness in my local with Extra Cold. It is spoilt. I have had to revert back to my pre-Guinness tipple, real ale (on the up side this is 50p a pint cheaper). However speaking of Guinness, Fergus Henderson recommends a glass of Black Velvet to accompany his Devilled Kidneys for a birthday breakfast treat. Black Velvet is a so called 'beer cocktail' and is made with half stout (usually Guinness) and half sparkling wine (usually Champagne). I have never actually tried one, but it has a certain appeal especially as a breakfast drink.

Having done a bit of research into the making of Black Velvet I can reveal there are nearly as many versions as there are for the Devilled Kidneys. Certainly the alcohols of choice are Guinness and Champagne and the quantities are in the main half and half. The glass varies from Champagne flute to tall beer glass. I think I'd go for the beer glass if only on size alone and to be honest my Champagne glasses are so thin and delicate they scare me to death. Now some recipes (do you have cocktail recipes?). Some recipes add the Guinness and Champers and mix together. This seems a bit of a cop out and all it is creating is a posh Guinness shandy. To me a cocktail has got to have eye appeal, be a bit showy, even a Martini with a gorgeous green olive resting in the V of those silly impractical glasses has a showy elegance so my Black Velvet has to have the Guinness and Champagne in layers Irish Coffee style. Some recipes float the Champagne on the Guinness others do it the other way round. I like the look of the Guinness on Champagne version best but whether that's achievable is yet to be seen, I've never had much success with floating cream on coffee so maybe a little practice is required here. Top tip I've read is to bend the spoon you use to gently pour the floating layer over.

A touch of the Uri Gellers and it's time to nip round to the 'offy' for some Guinness and cider and start my practising. Yea I'm going for cider instead of Champagne, apparently that's a Poor Man's Black Velvet – much more appropriate don't you think.